Personnel Policy in the City [First Paperback Edition, 1978, Reprint 2020] 9780520313125

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Personnel Policy in the City

This volume is sponsored by the OAKLAND PROJECT University of California, Berkeley

Personnel Policy in the City The Politics of Jobs in Oakland

FRANK J. THOMPSON

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley • Los Angeles • London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Copyright ©1975, by T h e Regents of the University of California First Paperback Edition, 1978 ISBN: 0-520-03509-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-79774 Printed in the United States of America 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

For BENNA, SAM, and ALIZA

The Oakland Project

At a time when much is said but little is done about the university's relationship to urban problems, it may be useful for those who are looking for ways of relating the university to the city to take a brief look at the Oakland Project of the University of California, which combined policy analysis, service to city officials and community groups, action in implementing proposals, training of graduate students, teaching new undergraduate courses, and scholarly studies of urban politics. The "university" is an abstraction, and as such it exists only for direct educational functions, not for the purpose of doing work within cities. Yet there are faculty members and students who are willing to devote large portions of their time and energy to investigating urban problems and to making small contributions toward resolving them. Our cities, however, do not need an invasion of unskilled students and professors. There is no point in hurtling into the urban crisis unless one has some special talent to contribute. After all, there are many people in city government—and even more on street corners—who are less inept than untrained academics. University people must offer the cities the talent and resources which they need and which they could not get otherwise. In 1956 a group of graduate students and faculty members vii

viii

The Oakland

Project

at the University of California at Berkeley became involved in a program of policy research and action in the neighboring city of Oakland. As members of the Oakland Project, they tried to meet some of the city's most pressing analytical needs and also to make suggestions that could be implemented. Members of the project made substantial time commitments (usually about two years) to working in a particular Oakland city agency. Normal working time was two days a week, although special crisis situations in the city sometimes necessitated much larger blocks of time. Since project members worked with city officials and remained in the city to help implement the suggestions they made, they avoided the "hit-and-run" stigma that members of city agencies often attach to outsiders. By attempting first to deal with problems as city officials understand them, project members developed the necessary confidence to be asked to undertake studies with broader implications. The Oakland Project became a point of communication for individuals and groups in the city of Oakland and throughout the University of California. Its focus expanded from a concentration on city budgeting to a wide range of substantive policies and questions of political process; for example, revenue, police, personnel, federal aid, education, libraries, and the institutionalization of policy analysis. The Project provided assistance to governmental (mayor, city manager, chief of police, head of civil service, superintendent of schools) and nongovernmental (community group) actors. In order to transmit the knowledge gained, Oakland Project members taught courses—open to both undergraduate and graduate students—dealing with urban problems and policies. The Project's scholarly objective is to improve policy analysis by providing new ways of understanding decisions and outcomes that affect cities. Its members have based numerous research essays on their experience in the city. It is hoped that the books in this series will be another means of transmitting what they have learned to a wider audience. AARON WILDAVSKY

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1

1 T H E LOST WORLD OF URBAN P E R S O N N E L POLICY

3

2 THE POLITICS OF M A N P O W E R : T H E MANAGER TRIUMPHANT

20

3 T H E POLITICS OF PAY: POLICEMEN SETTERS

45

4 THE POLITICS OF TACTICS

RECRUITMENT:

AS PACE

PUBLICITY 72

5 T H E POLITICS OF R E C R U I T M E N T : TACTICS

SELECTION 90

6 NEW TRENDS IN RECRUITMENT POLITICS: T H E MINORITY CHALLENGE

112

7 THE POLITICS OF REMOVAL

140

ix

x

Contents

8 POLITICS, POLICY, AND CITY J O B S

164

APPENDIX

195

BIBLIOGRAPHY

197

INDEX

205

Tables and Charts

Tables 1. The Nonwhite Percentage of Oakland's Population Has Increased

12

2. U.S. Cities of Between 250,000 and 500,000 with at least 20 Percent Nonwhite Population, 1970

12

3. City Hall Devotes The Most Man-Years to Public Safety, Fiscal Year 1971/72

14

4. Man-Years Increase Slightly Each Year, 19651970

38

5. Personnel Expanding, Maintaining, and Shrinking in Oakland City Departments, 1966-71

39

6. Major Employee Organizations in Oakland, June 1971

47

7. Fiscal Cost Per Man-Year Has Increased, 19661971

69

xi

xii

Tables and Charts

8. Selected Salaries Have Risen

70

9. Departments Vary in Personnel Needs, Fiscal Year 1969/70

79

10. High-Demand Departments Need Different Types of Personnel, Fiscal Year 1969/70

80

11. Education and Experience Requirements Vary by Department in Oakland, October 1970

93

12. City Hall Filters Out Most Applicants

110

13. Selection Processes Screened Out Proportionately More Minority Than Caucasion Hoseman Applicants (1971)

137

14. A Small Percentage of the Eligible List Is Minority

138

Charts 1. Budget Analyst Decision Rules in Reviewing Personnel Requests

25

2. Employee Leaders Look for Supportive Data

59

3. Definitions of Skills Congruence, Mismatch, Deficit, and Slack

73

4. A Decision Tree of the Civil Service Publicity Process

81

5. Decision Rules Oakland Departments Use in Publicizing Vacancies

87

6. Oakland's Entry Level Selection Process

91

7. Some Testing Decision Rules

104

Tables and Charts

xiii

8. Understanding of Performance Quality Varies by Position

142

9. The Removal Calculations of an Agency Head for a Nonprobationary Employee

149

10. Reaction to a Resignation

162

11. Some Weaknesses of Compromised Validation Strategies

180

Appendix Chart: City of Oakland Organization Chart

195

Acknowledgments

Aaron Wildavsky hired me as a research assistant on the Oakland Project in the fall of 1968. Since then, he has been an energetic, insightful, persistent and, above all, patient critic of my work. His help has been priceless. Others also provided highly perceptive commentary. Bob Biller contributed the kind of creative thinking that seems to come naturally to him. William Muir's unfailing ability to ask questions which I could not answer undoubtedly saved me from many errors. Then, too, members of the Oakland Project helped. Bill Lunch, Jesse McCorry, Judith May, Arnold Meltsner, Jeff Pressman, Jay Starling, and David Wentworth offered useful suggestions, social support, and good humor. Professor Meltsner in particular gave me detailed criticism of initial chapters. Later in my work on this manuscript, George Goerl, Robert Golembiewski, Karen Johnson, William McClung, Robert Miewald, and Lloyd Musolf provided insightful comments. I am particularly indebted to Professor Johnson who went over the many pages with special care. Though he was not involved in my research efforts, I am grateful to Andrew McFarland who provided crucial assistance early in my graduate career. Thanks must also go to Oakland officials, particularly Personnel Director James Newman and City Manager Jerome 1

2

Acknowledgments

Keithley, in whose offices I interned. My acquaintances in City Hall gave generously of their time and information. They taught me much. Financially, grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Urban Institute, and the National Science Foundation kept food on my table and the rent paid. The Public Personnel Association provided supplementary support during my final year in graduate school. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Benna. Cataloguing her contribution would require a separate volume in itself. All these people and institutions deserve credit for improving this work. Its present defects are, of course, my own doing.

1 The Lost World of Urban Personnel Policy Analysis of the sources from which power is derived and the limitations they impose is as much a dictate of prudent administration as sound budgeting procedure. The bankruptcy that comes from an unbalanced power budget has consequences far more disastrous than the necessity of seeking a deficiency appropriation. Norton Long1

"Oakland police need help" read the sign brandished by the off-duty police officer. In July 1969 he and more than 150 other policemen picketed for higher fringe benefits in front of City Hall during the city council's regular Tuesday evening session. Year after year the head of Oakland's building and housing department urgently requests more inspectors so that the city's codes can be enforced more thoroughly. Invariably the budget analyst denies him those additional posts. In an open letter to the mayor and city council a minority leader from the East Oakland-Fruitvale Planning Council argues that Oakland's new museum should remain shut until its staff reflects the racial composition of the city's population. In November 1970 Oakland's police chief fired a jailer on the grounds that he had severely beaten a prisoner. In January 1971, the Civil Service Commission reinstated him. 1 Norton Long, "Power and Administration," Bureaucratic Power in National Politics, ed. Francis Rourke (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), p. 15.

3

4

Personnel Policy in the City

Since all these events illustrate important aspects of personnel politics, they are not as disconnected as they may seem at first glance. Almost everyone knows that city officials face enormously complex problems—high taxes, poor housing, inadequate schools, crime, poverty, polluted air, and more. Many realize that local officials feel impotent to comprehend and control the forces that produce these complex and continuing urban crises. Concern therefore arises that city governments will fail to cope and that the legitimacy of local political institutions will ebb. Studies of urban politics multiply and proposals for rescuing cities abound. Some call for revenue sharing, others for community control, and still others for improved police technology. Clearly, problems of urban governance are no longer a "lost world' to social scientists.2 Yet substantial gaps in our understanding of urban politics persist. One major area of neglect is the process by which officials design and implement personnel policy.3 Despite our intense interest in urban government, we possess minimal knowledge of such personnel processes as manpower—city hall's method of establishing the number, type, and location of occupational roles it will contain; recruitment—the finding and screening of people to fill jobs; incentives—the providing of rewards and resources to motivate and enable employees to perform in certain ways; and removal—the displacing of employees from organizational roles. In short we know surprisingly little about the politics of jobs. This ignorance is lamentable because such politics markedly influences how city governments allocate important benefits. Personnel processes, for instance, help shape the quality, quantity, type, and regularity of city services. A manpower decision to add 150 patrolmen to the police department while simultaneously slicing the library staff by one-third reveals much about what government intends to do for citizens. Relationships between city officiails and employee leaders often determine how well the departments will function. New Yorkers who saw 2 Lawrence Hereon, "The Lost World of Municipal Government," American Political Science Review 51 (June 1957): 330-345. 3 1 define policy "as a hypothesis containing initial conditions and predicted consequences." See Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron B. Wildavsky, Implementation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. xiv.

Urban Personnel

Policy

5

a few mishandled firings precipitate the teachers' strike of 1968 could say much about the importance of undisrupted service. The politics of jobs also influences the quality of government outputs. The precise relationship between employee competence and the excellence of an agency's service is hard to specify. Nonetheless, if administrators hire the adroit and weed out the inept, prospects improve that ghetto youth will experience rewarding recreation programs, that dangerous intersections will be appropriately marked, that criminals will face more obstacles, and that city services will generally improve. Personnel decisions also dispense basic economic resources. As a result of such decisions, some get jobs and others do not; some earn more money to pay their bills than others. Moreover, with 70 percent of a city's budget often tied up in personnel, salary and manpower choices have implications for revenue policy. Many personnel choices siphon funds from the pocketbooks of city residents. The politics of jobs also helps distribute self-esteem and status. Whether people are rich or poor, black or white they generally aspire to jobs which pay them enough to live comfortably. In our society, failure to find desirable employment tends to undermine self-esteem.4 Daily hiring and firing judgments by city hall therefore make it easier for some to acquire and maintain self-respect than others. Other personnel decisions affect the status of individuals once they are hired. Salary decisions, for instance, not only permit bureaucrats to buy more amenities but often symbolize the employee's general prestige within the organization. Then too, the politics of jobs bestows special recognition or status on groups outside city hall. The percentage of city employees who are minority often indicates to members of the minority community just how much government cares about their problems. The distribution of political power also stems in part from personnel decision making. Salaried employment in government is a kind of political participation which at times permits the job holder to exert substantial influence over policy out* See for example Leonard Goodwin, Do The Poor Want To Work? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1972) and Elliot Liebow, Tally's Corner (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).

6

Personnel Policy in the City

comes.5 The job holder's capacity to shape the creation and implementation of policy increases with the number of personnel decisions he or she can control. The introduction of merit systems, for example, often boosts the power of city bureaucracies at the expense of political parties and elected officials. Where an agency employs large numbers of professionals and there is little interagency mobility among high department officials, the strength of city employees tends to increase further.6 Professionals often use their expertise or reputations for it to escape control. Officials with long tenure frequently become committed to the agency's way of doing things; they also develop alliances which help them resist the wishes of elected officials. In some instances city bureaucracies gain so much autonomy within their areas of specialization that they resemble the political machines of old.7 Personnel choices are politically important. Administrators live with the politics of jobs day in and day out, aware that their success in other policy arenas often depends on their ability to cope with personnel issues. Frequently, such issues prove too tough to handle. A traffic engineer believes that traffic safety suffers because he cannot win new positions. A police chief wins new slots, but during economically prosperous times he cannot find recruits to fill them. A streets and engineering director believes that his department's performance is hurt because he cannot rid himself of inept employees. When city representatives sit at the bargaining table with employee leaders, they find themselves forced to pay more for the same old services. Such issues irritate local officials continually. PERSONNEL POLICY AS A POLITICAL PROBLEM

Much current writing does not acknowledge the political nature of personnel processes. Writing in 1887, Woodrow Wilson helped establish the precedent for this view when he wrote: 5 Bennett Harrison, "Ghetto Employment and the Model Cities Program." (Paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Convention, Washington, D.C., 1972.) • See Fredrick Mosher, Democracy and the Public Service, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968); Theodore Lowi, At The Pleasure of the Mayor (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1964); and Eugene B. McGregor, Jr., "Politics and the Career Mobility of Bureaucrats," American Political Science Review 68 (March 1974): 18-26. ' See Judith May, "Progressives and the Poor: An Analytic History of Oakland"

Urban Personnel Policy

7

"Most important to be observed is the truth already so much insisted upon by our civil service reformers: namely, that administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics. Administrative questions are not political questions." 8 Wilson's view flavors much of the contemporary personnel literature. One student of personnel administration notes, for example, that the "working instruments of democratic politics as practiced today in the West are political parties." In his view administration becomes political primarily when party activists or elected officials influence decision making. 9 Another author discusses how "politics" presently poses less threat to merit practices than it did in the past. Throughout he assumes a dichotomy between political behavior and that found within true merit systems. That there is a politics of merit systems, apart from whether elected officials intervene, escapes notice.10 Then too, a book aimed at helping officials manage the urban crisis features an article which suggests various techniques for selecting applicants and evaluating recruitment procedures. 11 The political aspect of the problem receives virtually no attention, however. Are any of the suggested options politically feasible? What are their implications for broader political values? Answers do not emerge. Personnel decision making is too important to leave to those who view it as a technical problem.12 The fact that personnel directors rather than ward bosses are often the pivotal players in the personnel game should not distract us from its political character. 13 Those who recruit, fire, allocate positions, and so (unpublished paper, University of California, Berkeley, 1970), p. 61; and Theodore Lowi, "Forward," in Harold F. Gosnell, Machine Politics: Chicago Model (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. x. ' Woodrow Wilson, "The Study of Administration," Political Science Quarterly 56 (December 1941): 494. " O. Glenn Stahl, Public Personnel Administration (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 362, 420. He notes that pressure plays by elected politicians have made it difficult for the bipartisan civil service commission to rid personnel administration of politics. 10 Roger W. Jones, "The Merit System, Politics, and Political Maturity," Public Personnel Review 25 (January 1964): 28-34. 11 Alan R. Bass, "Personnel Selection and Evaluation," Management of the Urban Crisis-. Government and the Behavioral Sciences, ed., Stanley E. Seashore and Robert J. McNeill (New York: Free Press, 1971), pp. 299-341. 12 A technical problem is one involving minute detail of little significance for broader values. 13 See, for example, Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State (New York: Ronald

8

Personnel Policy in the City

on may be bureaucrats but they are not simple cogs in the machine. Often they have significant leeway to choose among various courses of action. Officials sense that they must plot and mobilize power resources if they are to advance their ends. Among the resources that players may use to get their way are: economic goods and services (including money);14 legal authority15 which is the formal right to exercise an option (for example, as defined by an administrative code or the laws of society); status, which is having prestige as a result of some attribute; the means of violence, which is the capacity to damage human life and property in a direct, physical sense; time, which is the number of hours or days that an actor can spend on an issue without paying what he believes are prohibitive opportunity costs (the foregone benefits which result from engaging in one activity rather than another); information, which in more synthesized form becomes knowledge and expertise. Information is particularly important to a decision maker. Without quality information about available alternatives and the consequences of using them, an actor has difficulty promotPress, 1948), pp. 120-129; and Michael M. Harmon, "Normative Theory and Public Administration: Some Suggestions for A Redefinition of Administrative Responsibility," Toward A New Public Administration, ed. Frank Marini (Scranton, Pa.: Chandler, 1971), p. 174. In the area of personnel administration, Robert D. Miewald, "Political Science and Public Personnel Administration," Public Personnel Review 30 (July 1969): 179, has made the same point. See also Robert D. Miewald, "On Teaching Public Personnel Administration: A Weberian Perspective," Western Political Quarterly 36 (March 1973): 97-108. 14 1 draw heavily on the typology presented by Warren F. Ilchman and Norman Thomas Uphoff, The Political Economy of Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), pp. 58-86. 15 This definition of authority departs from that of other organization theorists. For example, Herbert Simon, Administrative Behavior (New York: Free Press, 1957), p. 125, affirms that authority "is a relationship between two individuals, one superior, the other subordinate. The superior frames and transmits decisions with the expectation that they will be accepted by the subordinate. The subordinate expects such decisions, and his conduct is determined by them. The relationship of authority can be defined, therefore, in purely objective and behavioristic terms. It involves behavior on the part of both superior and subordinate. When, and only when, these behaviors occur does a relation of authority exist between the two persons involved." For my purposes formal authority exists whether subordinates obey orders or not. It is not causation, but a resource which may or may not be effective in molding behavior. The counter resource of a subordinate when confronted with an authoritative order is the ability to withhold legitimacy. Knowing who possesses what formal rights is not, of course, a description of an organizational power structure, but may explain part of the actual power configuration.

Urban Personnel

Policy

9

ing his ends. Problems increase further if the decision maker has few scorecards to orient him. A scorecard is a device which expresses in abbreviated and generally quantitative form how well an individual or group is performing;16 in essence scorecards tell actors whether they are winning or losing in a given issue arena. In the private sector, for instance, documents containing profit margin information serve as scorecards. Without such indicators players cannot readily assess the precise payoffs of their tactics; adjusting behavior to foster greater attainment of objectives becomes more complex. The information and other resources which actors possess, along with the objectives they hold, shape tactical behavior.17 Since where one stands depends on where one sits, individuals who toil in different parts of the organization tend to develop different values and priorities. They want different things in different orders. Conflicts often erupt; bargaining ensues. Some exert more leverage over personnel outcomes than others.18 Personnel processes do, then, feature many of the usual ingredients of politics. A systematic study of the politics of jobs is overdue. A few studies have launched explorations in this direction. Raymond Horton's analysis of labor relations in New York during the Wagner and Lindsay years gives us a feel for the tactical maneuvering that occurs, as does Jay Shafritz's treatment of employee efforts to be upgraded in Philadelphia.19 Case analyses 16 For discussions of keeping score, see Herbert Simon, George Kozmetsky, Harold Guetzkow, and Gordon Tyndall, "Management Uses of Figures," Public Budgeting and Finance, ed. Robert T. Golembiewski (Itasca, III.: F. E. Peacock, 1968), pp. 15-23; and James D. Thompson, Organizations in Action (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), pp. 83-98. " Richard Cyert and James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963); Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964); David Braybrooke and Charles Lindblom, A Strategy of Decision (New York: Free Press, 1970); Simon, Administrative Behavior. All these works discuss the ways in which decision makers cope with uncertainty. 19 1 define leverage as existing when one actor causes another to behave as the latter would not otherwise do. See also Kenneth J. Gergen, "Assessing the Leverage Points in the Process of Policy Formation," The Study of Policy Formation, ed. Raymond A. Bauer and Kenneth J. Gergen (New York: Free Press, 1968), p. 181. 18 Raymond D. Horton, Municipal Labor Relations in New York City : Lessons of the Lindsay-Wagner Years (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973); Jay M. Shafritz, Position Classification: A Behavioral Analysis for the Public Service (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973); see also portions of Wallace S. Sayre and Herbert Kaufman, Governing New York City (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965).

10

Personnel

Policy in the City

of unusual series of events in various organizations also provide insight.20 Yet on the whole the politics of jobs in urban bureaucracies remains a lost world to urban scholars. Existing studies do not describe and compare how city officials grapple with different kinds of personnel issues. Greater insight into the politics of jobs will not only enhance our understanding of why local governments behave as they do, it should also sharpen our capacity to analyze policy proposals. In its rush to offer advice or make moral pronouncements, much of the personnel literature does little to describe and explain behavior; moreover it shies away from acknowledging that bureaucratic politics is an integral part of the personnel process.21 Consequently, those who prescribe change frequently misjudge the impact of their proposals on the administrative systems they seek to improve and offer suggestions which officials find unattractive. Often they ignore the implications of their proposals for broader political values. In chapter 8, I will analyze these difficulties in greater depth.

OAKLAND AS A LABORATORY

City Hall in Oakland, California, provides a useful vehicle for analyzing personnel processes. During 1969 and 1970, I did 20 Certain case studies do capture some of the flavor of personnel politics in the cities. Such studies, however, seldom use social science concepts to interpret data and are reluctant to suggest more general conclusions. Moreover, such studies generally deal with one unusual series of events in one organization rather than policy formation as it regularly emerges. See, for example, Frank Sherwood, A City Manager Tries to Fire his Police Chief (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963); Frank C. Abbot, "The Cambridge City Manager," Public Administration, and Policy Development: A Case Book, ed. Harold Stein (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952), pp. 580-617; Frank B. Sherwood and Beatrice Markey, The Mayor and the Fire Chief: The Fight Over Integrating the Los Angeles Fire Department (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1959). 21 Consider, for instance, how Stahl, Public Personnel Administration, pp. 146-167, treats the subject of position classification. The chapter begins with a discussion of duties and rank classification systems which different governments presumably use and presents what is "ideally" done in putting positions in a class. Finally, it briefly assesses proposals for adopting a rank system in the United States. There are, however, no answers to the following questions: Who cares about classification and why? How do they calculate and plot tactics? Who ends up controlling classification decisions? Nor is there much effort to assess precisely who benefits from "sound classification." For other examples, see almost any issue of the Public Personnel Review (more recently, Public Personnel Management).

Urban Personnel

Policy

11

part-time staff work for Oakland's personnel director and city manager. Simultaneously, I employed a standard array of participant observer methods to gather information for this book.22 This research strategy gave me access to information which otherwise would have been difficult to obtain. From the start my purpose was exploratory. Knowledge about the politics of jobs was so minimal that hypothesis testing seemed premature. Instead, an effort to generate some concepts and propositions through an in-depth study of the personnel process seemed more appropriate.23 Given the research method employed and the focus on one city, this volume will not produce a proven theory of personnel politics. It will, however, contain some elements of a theory and serve as a step toward generalization. In this regard, it is important to emphasize that Oakland is not an unusual city. Its problems are the stuff of America's urban crisis—high unemployment, revenue shortages, poverty, racial tensions. Oakland's formal political arrangements moreover are common for a city its size. In many respects, then, the city is an all-American one. Among Oakland's attributes, two are particularly important for understanding the politics of jobs: its substantial disadvantaged minority population and its reformed political institutions. Race. Blacks, Chicanos, and Orientals comprise a substantial and rising percentage of Oakland's citizens. As Table 1 reveals, the city's population dropped by about 6 percent from 1960 to 1970 while its nonwhite component rose by well over 150 22 1 accumulated data through day-to-day observation, open-ended interviews, innumerable casual conversations with employees, perusal of documents, and careful scrutiny of the Oakland Tribune and the Montclarion. 23 1 am, of course, aware of the limits to the generalizations which case studies can produce. I would prefer to reside in the never-never land of social science where intimate knowledge of personnel politics in dozens of cities would be at my fingertips. But a researcher's resources have limits and acquiring information is costly. Furthermore, there is precedent for using one case to explore more general questions. Authors who have used this method to good advantage include: Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York: John Wiley, 1967); Alvin W. Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (New York: Free Press, 1954); and Alan Altshuler, The City Planning Process: A Political Analysis (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1970). Others have seen the utility of the case method. See, for instance, Arend Lijphart, "Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method," American Political Science Review 65 (September 1971): 691; Barney G. Glaser and Anselm Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory (Chicago: Aldine, 1967).

Personnel Policy in the City

12

percent. If the Census Bureau had classified Spanish surnames as nonwhite, the 1970 data would show that a majority of Oakland's residents are in minority groups. T A B L E 1 : T H E NONWHITE PERCENTAGE OF OAKLAND'S POPULATION HAS INCREASED

Year

Total population

Percentage decline or increase

1940 1950 1960 1970

302,163 384,575 367,548 361,561

+27.3 -4.4 -1.6

Nonwhite population

Percentage increase

Nonwhite as percentage of total population

14,227 55,778 97,025 148,049

+292.1 +73.9 +52.6

4.7 14.5 26.4 41.0

Source: U.S. Census.

In terms of the proportion of its residents who are minority, Oakland ranks high among American cities. Of the roughly forty cities with over 250,000 population, only nine (Washington, Honolulu, Newark, Atlanta, Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit, Birmingham, and St. Louis) had a higher percentage of nonwhite population than Oakland did in 1970. Limiting our attention (see Table 2) to places more nearly Oakland's size (those with a population of between 250,000 and 500,000), the city ranks fifth in percentage of nonwhite population. T A B L E 2 : U . S . CrriES OP BETWEEN 2 5 0 , 0 0 0 AND 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 WITH AT LEAST 2 0 PERCENT NONWHITE POPULATION, 1 9 7 0

City Honolulu, Hawaii Newark, New Jersey Atlanta, Georgia Birmingham, Alabama OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

Norfolk, Virginia Cincinnati, Ohio Louisville, Kentucky Miami, Florida Jersey City, New Jersey Buffalo, New York Fort Worth, Texas Tampa, Florida

Population 325,000 382,000 497,000 301,000 362,000 308,000 452,000 361,000 335,000 261,000 463,000 393,000 278,000

Percentage

nonwhite

66.1 56.0 51.6 42.2 40.9 30.2 28.1 24.1 23.4 22.2 21.3 20.6 20.0

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1971.

Minorities not only comprise a key segment of Oakland's population; they also receive less of the good things in life.

Urban Personnel Policy

13

The city's unemployment rate is generally twice that prevalent in the rest of the nation, with blacks and Chicanos being particularly hard hit.24 Minorities have also had less formal schooling. While whites had a median education of 12.4 years, black and Spanish surnames had median marks of 11.0 and 9.9 respectively.25 Though the number of minorities with a high-school diploma is rising, what they are learning is another matter. At three high schools with more than 70 percent minority student enrollment, for instance, roughly two-thirds of the students read at levels below the national norm.26 Nor do minorities have housing comparable to that of whites. "A higher proportion of all black families, regardless of income, were inadequately housed when compared to white families in the same income and family-size categories."27 Deprivations such as these have given impetus to complaints by various minority spokesmen. Convinced that city hall has done little to improve the plight of minorities, they have attacked recruitment and removal procedures. Oakland features reformed government. In addition to racial unrest, Oakland features reformed political institutions. Urbanists generally define such institutions as including a citymanager form of government, nonpartisan elections where candidates run at-large, and broad civil service coverage of city employees.28 Oakland has all these attributes. Reformed institutions are not unusual for cities Oakland's size. The councilmanager form of government prevails in almost half the cities with populations of between 250,00 and 500,000.29 If Oakland's form of government is far from atypical, neither are the services it provides. (For an organization chart, see Appendix.) The bureaucracy devotes half its labor force to what we can loosely term public safety (such as police and fire protection, building and housing inspection), roughly one-fifth 24 U.S. Department of Commerce, Pocket Data Book, USA, 1971 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), pp. 48-49. 25 Oakland, City Planning Department, Options for Oakland, 1969, p. 7. " l a m indebted to Jesse McCorry for these data. 27 Oakland, City Planning Department, Options, p. 7. 28 Bret W. Hawkins, Politics and Urban Policies (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971) p. 19. 29 Jeffrey L. Pressman "Preconditions of Mayoral Leadership," American Political Science Review 66 (June 1972): 515-516.

Personnel

14

Policy in the City

to culture and recreation, another sixth to various internal control and support functions (for example, budgetary review, building upkeep, purchasing, recruitment of personnel, and so on), and about one-eighth to street maintenance and repair (see Table 3). City hall does not run the educational or welfare systems. An independent district handles the former while Alameda county operates the latter. T A B L E 3 : CITY H A L L DEVOTES THE MOST MAN-YEARS TO PUBLIC SAFETY, FISCAL YEAH 1 9 7 1 / 7 2

Department

Main junctions

Number of man-years

Percentage of all man-years

Public Safety Units Police

Law enforcement, order maintenance

1014.3

28.1

Fire

Fire prevention and suppression

675.0

18.7

Building and Housing

Inspection of physical structures, and enforcement of codes

83.1

2.3

Culture and Recreation Parks and Recreation

Management of recreation programs and supervision of park areas

459.7

12.7

Library

Storage and lending of reading materials

189.0

5.2

Museum

Arrangement of historical, scientific, and artistic exhibits

88.6

2.5

Internal Control and Support General Services

Maintenance of electrical e q u i p m e n t , smaller purchases of supplies and equipm e n t , care of city vehicles, provision of custodial services

375.3

10.4

Finance

Research and budget analysis, accounting, control of the electronic data processing facility

119.0

3.3

Urban Personnel Policy

15

TABLE 3-Continued Department

Main functions

Number of man-years

Percentage of all man-years

Civil Service

Search and selection; maintenance employee files; handling of e m p l o y e e complaints; classification studies

18.5

.5

City Attorney

Legal advice

18.0

.5

record

39.9

1.1

Sewer and street maintenance and construction, traffic engineering, appraisal and acquisition of needed property, architectural services

491.2

13.6

Administration of zoning o r d i n a n c e , short-term studies dealing with land use, development review, and updating of general plan

23.3

Mayor-Coundl Authorization of formal policies

14.0

.4

2.0

.1

Other staff and A u d i t i n g , clerical help keeping Street Maintenance and Repair Public Works

Other City Planning

Associated Agencies

Stimulation and enhancement of interagency communication on problems of juvenile delinquency and antisocial behavior

Source : Oakland Finance Office.

Formal institutional arrangements do, of course, allocate power resources and shape patterns of participation and leverage. In general, reformed institutions shift the center of personnel decision making to the bureaucracy. Reformed government strips power resources from elected officials and emphasizes

16

Personnel Policy in the City

that professionally trained experts should conduct much of government's business. City employees are the main participants. Oakland's mayor and eight councilmen suifer from political poverty in the personnel arena. With the former receiving $7500 yearly and the latter about half of that each, all must rely on outside occupations for a basic livelihood. Naturally they devote little attention to city affairs, let alone to personnel questions. By and large, elected officials view personnel issues as insignificant relative to other matters.30 As a result their knowledge of these activities is quite limited. Even if they were keenly interested in the area, their lack of formal authority would inhibit initiative. To be sure, the council can legally set compensation rates, establish departments and positions, and layoff (not fire) employees. But in other personnel areas the charter draws a firm distinction between matters of administration and policy. It makes clear that the "Mayor shall have no administrative authority," and makes it a misdemeanor for him or the council to "take part in the appointment or removal of officers or employees in the administrative service of the city."31 The city manager and the department heads (whom he appoints) hold some rights at the expense of the council since they are the key proprietors of the so-called administrative sphere. The manager formally advises the council on how many men the city needs, how they should be allocated among departments, and what wage and fringe benefit settlements they should receive. The manager, along with his leading agency officials, also has the authority to appoint and remove employees; but the large number of classified positions in the bureaucracy restricts these prerogatives. For classified slots, the Civil Service Commission holds formal authority over the initial screening of job applicants and can veto a decision to fire, demote, or transfer. 30 Data from Heinz Eulau and Robert Eyestone, "Policy Maps of City Councils and Policy Outcomes: A Developmental Analysis," American Political Science Review 62 (March 1968): 137, point to the low salience of such issues for Bay Area councilmen generally. 31 Oakland, Oakland. City Charter, Article II, Sections 219 and 221.

Urban Personnel

Policy

17

Since nearly all Oakland's 3400 full-time positions are classified, the commission possesses a formidable power resource.32 The Civil Service Commission is not, however, as powerful as its supply of formal authority would indicate. This stems from the commission's limited expertise. Meeting four Tuesdays per month for two hours, Oakland's five commissioners do not know the intricacies of city hall administration.33 Furthermore, they are unlikely to acquire adequate information through extended seniority. From 1961 to 1971 half of the members gave up commission posts before their terms expired, although they had each been appointed for six years. As of June 1971 the average tenure of each commissioner was roughly two and one-half years, with individual experience ranging from seven and one-third years to less than one month. Nor are the private occupational backgrounds of board members especially likely to yield insights into city hall personnel processes. Of the fifteen commissioners who served during the period from 1960 to 1971, just under three-fourths were businessmen or lawyers. These vocations could potentially provide board members with information useful in making personnel decisions. On the whole, however, city hall procedures (such as the written testing program) are sufficiently unique to minimize a knowledge transfer from a private occupational role to that of commissioner. The board's lack of expertise makes it dependent on the personnel director and employee leaders for information. The former, whom the commission appoints to head a staff of seventeen, serves as its chief adviser. He acts as master interpreter of the more than 40-page Laws and Rules of The Civil Service Board and is an expert on professional personnel trends. More than any other single actor, he is aware of what the board has done, what it legally can do, and what other jurisdictions are attempting. While the director's knowledge does not 32 The picture changes only slightly if we consider part-time roles which, under civil service rules, are exempt. In fiscal 1970/71, the city used only 227 part-time man-years. Adding these to the number of full-time exempt slots, over 93 percent of all man-years are still classified. 33 The mayor appoints commissioners.

18

Personnel Policy in the City

invariably permit him to get his way, it gives him significant leverage over many commission choices. The civil service office is not the only unit limiting the discretion of the council, manager, and agency heads. The rank-and-file employees (operationalized as those at least two steps down the chain of command from the department head) also possess resources. Of particular importance are the employee unions and associations which many bureaucrats have joined. Buttressed by a 1968 California state law which requires local officials to meet and confer in good faith, these groups are beginning to have considerable impact on personnel decisions. Well over three-fourths of all city employees belong to some union or association. City employees within the bureaucracy are, then, the main personnel players in Oakland's reformed political setting. This is not to say that outside groups or events have no impact. For, as will become apparent, the national and state government, professional associations, job hunters, the electorate, educational institutions, the media, and local interest groups (particularly minority spokesmen) markedly affect the politics of jobs. Nonetheless, those who most consistently and consciously participate are within the bureaucracy's ranks. How, then, do individuals and groups play the personnel game? What uncertainties do they face when they choose among options? What tactics emerge? Do dispersed or concentrated leverage patterns result? What impact do these patterns have on decision making? An examination and comparison of manpower, pay, recruitment, and removal arenas in Oakland will provide insights.34 These insights should in turn enlighten debate over how to improve civil service systems. Although long sheltered by merit symbols, personnel practices and the behavior of urban bureaucracies have come under increasing fire.35 Two observers of New York's personnel system have charged for example, that it M My research resources do not permit a more extensive probing of the incentives arena beyond the issue of pay and fringe benefits. 36 See Alan Altshuler, Community Control: The Black Demand for Participation in Large American Cities (New York: Pegasus, 1970), pp. 151-173, 191; Susan S. Fainstein and Norman I. Fainstein, "Innovation in Urban Bureaucracies: Clients and Change," American Behavioral Scientist 15 (March/April, 1972): 511-532.

Urban Personnel

Policy

19

"prohibits good management, frustrates able employees, inhibits productivity, lacks the confidence of the city's taxpayers and fails to respond to the needs of citizens." They suggest that this situation is far from uncommon and that new personnel policies are essential.36 Cures can be as bad as diseases, however. Misguided proposals for change are particularly likely if concern with what should be leads us to neglect what is. x E. S. Savas and Sigmund S. Ginsburg, "The Civil Service-A Meritless System?" The Public Interest 32 (Summer 1973): 70-85.

2 The Politics of Manpower: The Manager Triumphant Organizational arrangements are not neutral. We do not organize in a vacuum. Organization is one way of expressing . . . commitment, influencing program direction, and ordering priorities. Organizational arrangements tend to give some interests, some perspectives, more access to those with decisionmaking authority. . . . Harold Seidman 1

Officials in cities sporadically make choices that shape the formal role structures of local governments. They at least implicitly decide how to group certain sets of duties into positions (that is, promulgate a division of labor); they choose how many of the different kinds of positions the organization needs; and they determine where to situate work roles in the hierarchy of authority and among various departments. By so doing, officials influence the level of service the bureaucracy provides in different functional areas, the financial cost of local government, the level of work alienation among employees, the recruitment problems city officials confront, and so forth. In appraising manpower decision making in Oakland, this chapter will focus first on the politics of numbers (for example, 1 Harold Seidman, Politics, Position and Power: The Dynamics of Federal Organization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 14.

20

Politics of Manpower

21

choices concerning how many firefighter slots to fund). Budgetary and job classification processes will consequently receive considerable attention. Then I will analyze the factors that facilitate or impede position transfers among departments. As will become apparent, the manpower arena is the city manag6r's main personnel success story.

THE POLITICS OF MANPOWER NUMBERS

To an outsider, decisions on whether to add or delete certain types of jobs may seem complex. Who can be sure of the political, economic, and social costs and benefits of adding more patrolmen instead of recreation or museum personnel? Who can specify precisely the relationship between the number of people in different occupational roles and organizational effectiveness? While queries like these might trouble some, Oakland officials are generally little disturbed by them. Consider the city manager, who, more than any other actor shapes personnel outlays. For Oakland's city manager, success in the manpower arena is comprehensible in terms of its implications for revenue policies. Reinforced by the attitudes of the mayor (a Republican in a formally nonpartisan role) and council, the manager considers the tax rate to be the crucial overall indicator of his performance. Since taking office in 1966, he has struggled to minimize the need for additional revenue, while whittling down the politically hot property tax. The manager has had some success in accomplishing the latter objective. During the period from 1966 to 1971, the property tax rate declined from $3.17 per $100 assessed valuation to $2.80, a 13 percent decline.2 The search for money is, however, unending and the sense of fiscal crisis persists. Given his revenue aspirations the manager naturally casts a jaundiced eye on any request which will further drain the city treasury. For him the basic concern is not whether a proposal will enhance organizational efficiency. Expanded out2 During the same period, assessed valuation of property rose from $712,358,017 to $961,152,669, an increase of about 35 percent. Oakland, City of Oakland Preliminary Budget, 1971/72, p. A-10.

22

Personnel

Policy

in the

City

put at a lesser increment of increased cost is not the object. Rather, the point is to promote cost reduction efficiency, or on occasion simply to economize regardless of the impact on efficiency. The fact that fiscal inputs are relatively easy to measure compared to service outputs encourages this orientation. For as Anthony Downs has noted in another context, high certainty concerning costs and substantial ignorance concerning benefits often leads officials to undervalue the latter.3 A city manager like Oakland's is all the more unlikely to seek efficiency through greater spending if there are no good productivity scorecards which tell him precisely what he is getting for spending more. In his unrelenting war against greater costs, the manager believes that it is particularly important to resist work-force expansion. Personnel expenditures comprise more than 70 percent of Oakland's budget, in fiscal 1969/70, the city budgeted more than $45 million for employees. Furthermore, such expenses constantly threaten to mushroom. Once hired, a subordinate costs more each year. In part this is because the subordinate receives an annual step increase until he has been in the same position for five years. But it also stems from the pay and fringe benefit boosts employee leaders are constantly able to win. Adding to the manager's problem is the "once hired, never fired" norm which pervades the organization. Civil service rules protect the tenure rights of employees after a probationary period; building the case necessary for firing consumes much time and energy. While the council and city manager have the authority to lay off employees (unlike firing, this means removing personnel for reasons other than poor performance) they are reluctant to use this resource. Concerned with showing fidelity to city bureaucrats and wishing to avoid conflict with employee organizations, council members and the manager prefer to eliminate slots only through attrition. Even this kind of position surgery is difficult, as the experience of the Manpower Control Committee testifies. Created by the manager, this committee (consisting of the personnel director, finance director, and assistant to the city manager) 3 Anthony Downs, "Why the Government Budget Is Too Small in a Democracy," World Politics 12 (June 1960): 541-563.

Politics of Manpower

23

meets every Friday to decide whether to eliminate or refill vacant slots. While this body may raise questions and suggest careful review during the next budgetary cycle, it seldom weeds out a position. Committee members believe that they lack the data needed for sound judgment, and that they do not have the time or staff necessary to find out whether excessive manpower slack exists.4 Another inhibiting factor is their awareness that constant challenges to department heads, particularly where the committee has flimsy evidence, might raise antagonisms. The city manager, then, faces difficulties in reducing the size of city hall's work force. By contrast, the manager finds it much easier to prevent increases in man-years. In this regard the main threat to his cost-cutting goals arises during the budgetary process. By and large, Oakland's departments lend credence to the claims of Parkinson5 and Downs that "all organizations have an inherent tendency to expand."6 Attuned to professional norms and committed to better service, agency heads request more manpower year after year. In 1970, for example, 71 percent of Oakland's fourteen major departments sought additional personnel, 14 percent held the line asking for neither more nor less, and 14 percent requested fewer slots than the previous year. For most of these agency heads, the more slots attained out of those sought the greater the sense of having achieved success in this arena. (As will become clearer later, those who failed to ask for more men did so for broader strategic reasons, not because they had no aspirations to expand.) Agency heads, then, periodically articulate manpower demands that threaten to push personnel costs upward. How does the manager respond to their challenge? THE MANAGER'S BUDGET TACTICS 7

In struggling to minimize position increases, the city manager relies on the finance office. Agency requests for support arrive ' The manager is not, of course, interested in perpetuating such slack as a hedge against uncertainty since it costs him money to do so. 5 C. Northcoate Parkinson, Parkinson's Law (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964). 6 Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), p. 17. 7 For an overview of Oakland's budgetary process, see Arnold J. Meltsner and Aaron Wildavsky, "Leave City Budgeting Alone! A Survey, Case History and Recommendation for Reform." (Unpublished draft, University of California, Berkeley, 1969).

24

Personnel

Policy

in the

City

in this office in January and February. Analysts then spend two to three months analyzing the department requests. To reduce decision uncertainty about manpower and other budgetary matters, the analysts will often visit the agencies and talk with officials there; but there are limits to the amount of information that can be accumulated in this and other ways. Time is short. Moreover all five analysts in 1970 had been with the office less than two years. Thus, they could not fall back on expertise born of seniority. Standard decision rules help analysts cope with uncertainty. Although lacking knowledge concerning the precise consequences of their decisions, analysts make choices expeditiously through the use of orientation, trade-off, and slash rules. Orientation rules give initial cues as to how to approach the budget request; trade-off rules dictate that the analyst give up something in return for eliminating positions; slash rules lead the analyst to cut positions from requests without giving much in return. Chart 1 lists some manifestations of these types. The most basic of these rules is one which the manager repeatedly emphasizes: cut all requests for additional personnel. On occasion, analysts make exceptions to this norm, but overall it is the major factor molding their choices. Once the analysts have made their recommendations, the finance director and the city manager may modify manpower outcomes slightly. By and large, however, the initial judgments of the analysts remain unchanged. This in large part reflects their adoption of some of the manager's values. The decision rules they use are those that the chief executive encourages. Although the city council possesses ultimate authority over personnel expenditures, the body seldom challenges the city manager's recommendations.8 The manager's expertise and prestige as a cost cutter give him considerable leverage over the budget's contents. The budget format (in use up to 1971) also helps him. Under this system, the council never learns what each department requests. Consequently, the city manager's recommendation comes across as representing a kind of unanimous bureaucratic decision, even though it is nothing of the sort.9 «Ibid., pp. 50-52. On the importance of unanimity, see Charles R. Adrian and Charles Press, "Decision

8

Politics of Manpower

25

CHART 1 : BUDGET ANALYST DECISION R U L E S IN R E V I E W I N G PERSONNEL REQUESTS

Orientation Rules—give initial cues as to how to approach the budget request. 1. Carefully scrutinize and cut low-status departments. 2. Disregard work-load data (analysts believe they are inflated and inaccurate and often have little significance because there are no good norms which establish proper workloads or manpower distributions). 3. Look for reference points and compare (e.g., the analyst reviewing the library knew that it had more book-binder positions than the Los Angeles library even though the latter was much larger). Exchange or Trade-Off Rules—dictate that the analyst give up something in return for eliminating positions. 4. Trade position for position in a way that will cut costs. 5. Exchange positions for overtime allocations and vice versa. 6. Exchange positions for a promise that the slot will fund itself. 7. Cut positions and give machines in return.* 8. Get rid of positions for monetary contracts with private firms (e.g., hire a private firm to pick up garbage rather than having city employees do it). 9. Exchange a position at present for a departmental commitment to eliminate it later. Slash Rules—lead the analyst to cut positions from requests without giving much in return. 10. Cut requests for new personnel. 11. Cut a little deeper than you actually feel is justified. 12. Eliminate vacant positions (the analyst reasons that if a department has been unable to fill a budgeted position throughout the previous fiscal year and has performed satisfactorily, this is an indicator that the department can get along without the slot). Source: Oakland Finance Office * See Judith May, "Budgeting in the Street and Engineering Department" (unpublished paper, University of California, Berkeley, 1968).

Of course, the council's basic commitment to holding the line on taxes does establish an expectation which the manager must meet. This, however, creates little tension for the city manager because he shares the council's value orientation. It is doubtful that the manager's choices would be much different if he suddenly had final authority over personnel allocations. EXPANSIONARY BUDGET TACTICS

Year after year, then, the manager plays Scrooge with personnel. How do agency heads respond to an executive so stingy Costs in Coalition Formation," American Political Science Review 62 (June 1968): 559; and Richard F. Fenno, The Power of the Purse: Appropriations Politics in Congress (Boston: Little Brown, 1966).

26

Personnel

Policy in the City

with man-years? The answer is mainly by asking for more personnel. In doing so, department heads tend to argue that work is increasing, that they have assumed new functions, or that manpower expansion will not cost more money. We can't keep up with the load. The most typical department tactic is to contend that continued satisfactory performance of present duties necessitates adding personnel. One reason why agency heads keep work-load statistics is to make this expansionist argument more convincing. In their budget requests, agency officials will generally emphasize the statistics that most graphically illustrate a heavier work load. In 1967, for instance, the personnel director noted in his request that the number of positions in city hall had increased and that turnover would rise from 5 to 15 percent in the next two years. According to the director these increases meant that his staff would have to do more recruiting for line agencies; to keep up with the demand he would need three additional employees. The finance office's response to the director's request suggests the common futility of claiming that work is' increasing. In the year the director made this argument, the finance office not only rejected the plea for three new personnel staffers but cut one of the civil service office's regular employees as well. In general, budget analysts are suspicious of work-load data. They have little faith that agency statistics are accurate. Moreover, in the absence of clear norms concerning the amount of work an employee can do, analysts remain skeptical that such statistics demonstrate a need for more manpower. We are doing something new. Another agency gambit is to claim that new responsibilities necessitate more manpower. Since Oakland City Hall seldom takes on new tasks, department heads rarely have the opportunity to use this tactic. If an agency does acquire a new function, however, officials will generally use the addition to justify a request for more slots. In making this kind of justification it helps the agency if the new function directly contributes to salient objectives of the manager and finance office. Thus, the head of the purchasing department, which contracts out for supplies and services, won a new position in order to "assist in a complete review of the entire purchasing system and to institute major changes which

Politics

of

Manpower

27

should be possible with new data processing capabilities."10 The new data processing facility is a pet project of the manager and the finance director. Let the manager have his cake and eat it too. At times the claim that work is increasing yields manpower payoffs for department heads. A surer means of getting more men is, however, the no-cost approach. This amounts to showing that positions will pay for themselves and, perhaps, raise revenue beyond cost. Use of the tactic, in a sense, represents a triumph for the city manager. Department heads keep an eye out for positions that will produce revenue. They become concerned with finding avenues toward fiscally costless personnel expansion. Departments directly engaged in gathering fees for the city or ones dealing with functions which the federal government often subsidizes possess the greatest opportunity to use this approach. The traffic engineering and parking director, for instance, supervises the enforcement of parking laws, which is a money-making function for the city. In 1970, he justified a request for four new parking meter checkers on grounds that each would bring at least $35,000 to city coffers. He based his estimate on a study which showed that checkers wrote from nine to twenty-five tickets each hour. Assuming the tickets to be worth $2.00 each (the minimum fine), he estimated that each meter maid brought in $50,000 per year to the city. To be on the safe side, he reduced the figure to $35,000. The director and his assistant knew that beyond certain reasonable limits each checker could not produce this much revenue; but they believed the point of diminishing returns to be distant. They found support for this conviction in San Francisco which had twice as many meters as Oakland and almost four times as many checkers. Eventually the finance office gave them two new meter maids. A request such as the traffic director's has appeal to budget analysts because they experience little uncertainty that the position will yield revenue. People parking in Oakland are unlikely to become more law abiding: the opportunity to write parking tickets will not dry up suddenly. 10

Oakland, City of Oakland Preliminary Budget, Fiscal 1970/71, p. B-131.

28

Personnel Policy in the City

Work-load and no-cost approaches are among the most common tactics for personnel expansion. There are, however, other ploys which agency heads can use. Such tactics are most likely to emerge in a bureaucracy, like Oakland's, which has a strong anti-expansionist leadership. SELF-INFLICTED REDUCTIONS

However strategically sophisticated the department head, he is unlikely to win more positions. Not surprisingly, this has caused agency officials to lower their expectations, but has not resulted in a parallel reduction of aspirations. It is important in this context not to equate expectations with aspirations. Expectations are beliefs about what will happen. Aspirations are goals or future levels of performance which the individual wants to attain. Despite the fact that Oakland agency heads do not expect to procure many more slots, they still aspire to enlarge their work force. By and large this aspiration finds expression in their budget manpower requests. This is not always true, however. At times reduced expectations have prompted agencies to ask for smaller personnel increases, to hold the line entirely, or actually to seek fewer men. When they practice such self-denial, it is usually out of a desire to secure some compensating benefit. Belt tighten to invest in future status. When defeat seems inevitable, some administrators will ask for smaller personnel increases in an effort to build reputations for being "no fat" agency heads. By showing a willingness to restrain himself, the official hopes to build his status for economizing with the city manager and, perhaps, cash in on this enhanced prestige at some future point. In extreme form this type of belt tightening leads the department head to seek no new slots. The personnel director, for example, employed a "shame them and wait 'til next year" theme in his request for fiscal 1968/69. After noting that over the years the responsibilities of his staff had increased, he wrote: "Because of these various factors we asked in the 1967/68 budget for an increase in the staff of three positions. They were turned down without comment. Although the same situation exists this year as it has in the past, we

Politics of Manpower

29

are not asking for additional personnel since indications are for various reasons that they would not be granted." The personnel director hoped that this approach would enhance his status and would permit him to win personnel concessions in the future. The next year, however, he asked for new slots but did not receive any. This points to one reason why agency heads seldom use this tactic. Even if the city manager acknowledges their efforts to economize, he still may not grant them concessions in future years. Trade personnel cuts for other budgetary concessions. Another self-denial tactic that is endemic to bureaucracies with an economizing leadership is to trade slots for nonpersonnel concessions. The fire chief used this approach in 1970, exchanging personnel cuts for capital outlay. The veteran chief, who heads a force of 684 persons, had for several years sought a $110,000 utility building. He wanted the structure in order to provide suitable space for fire-department training and the storage of apparatus. Year after year the city manager and finance office denied the request. Finally in his submission for 1970/71 the chief argued that the excellence of his fire prevention unit permitted him to cut two hosemen slots from his base of positions. In return the chief wanted the utility house. Convinced that the chief had shown a willingness to compromise and had displayed respect for economizing goals, the finance office and manager agreed. That they were impressed with the approach is evident from a later council session in mid-June 1970. One of the councilmen, chagrined at the lack of council control over the budget, suggested that he and his colleagues vote to eliminate the expenditure for the utility building. But the city manager defended the structure as a high-priority item stating that the chief was the only department head to request a cut instead of an increase in personnel.11 Exchange expensive slots for cheaper ones. Another variant of self-denial occurs when department heads try to trade expensive positions for cheaper ones. An agency head is more likely to attempt this infrequently used tactic if he has had difficulties in recruiting qualified personnel for a high-level 11 A check of the budget requests indicates that the museum department also asked for fewer positions in 1970 than it had in 1969.

30

Personnel Policy in the City

position. During fiscal 1969/70, for instance, the traffic engineering and parking director was unable to fill a budgeted engineering position which had become vacant. He prodded the civil service office, scanned the market himself, and placed ads in professional journals but could find no satisfactory applicant. The director valued the engineering position since it was essential for planning and gave the department a skills slack useful in meeting contingencies and boosting its professional status. At the same time, the director foresaw the problems of continuing with the unfilled position. Obviously the vacancy reduced the service his department provided; and even if he suddenly succeeded in filling the slot, the director believed that there would be persistent turnover in the future. More fundamentally he knew that the budget analysts tended to cut vacant positions. To avoid this eventuality and to ease future recruitment problems, the director reluctantly asked that finance eliminate the engineering position and substitute a subprofessional senior engineering aide for it. The aide position was less expensive and called only for a high-school degree with advanced mathematics and two years of experience. Subsequently, the budget analyst agreed to the exchange. There are, of course, risks to the self-denial approach which make its use infrequent. Many smaller departments believe that they do not have men to give away. Furthermore an agency head has to present a plausible excuse for being able to concede a slot and then make a good case for receiving something in return. Otherwise, he may find himself in a quandary comparable to that which the museum director faced in 1970. He requested fewer man-years than he had had the previous year in exchange for certain benefits; instead the budget analyst cut even more slots and refused to grant him any concessions. In short, pursuing self-denial tactics is an uncertain business. The department gives up something at the outset and risks getting little in return. Once a man is lost, it is difficult to get him back. Low expectations can at times, then, lead departments to make more conservative requests—seeking smaller manpower gains, holding the line, or even giving up slots. From the manager's perspective this amounts to success. Responding to

Politics of Manpower

31

his pressure, departments cut themselves and do not force the finance office either to spend time evaluating their requests or to wield its authority. This triumph does, however, bear the potential cost of information blockage for the manager. A budget request is one way those at the top of a hierarchy learn about manpower needs at the bottom levels. If agency heads believe that it is futile to seek more men, the manager risks losing touch with their problems. Given the general propensity of Oakland's agencies to continue to make requests, however, this is not a major managerial difficulty. These, then, are the values and behavioral patterns which shape manpower determination decisions made through the budgetary process. Department heads play the game primarily to win more slots; the manager primarily to hold down fiscal costs. As will become even more apparent when we assess outcomes, the city manager generally prevails. T H E MANAGER'S CONCERN WITH CLASSIFICATION

The city manager's interest in the number of different kinds of positions city hall will contain does not end with the budgetary process. He has also considered the bureaucracy's position classification process. City hall has more than 300 classes of positions (for example, semi-skilled laborer, intermediate typist clerk, zoo keeper). The Civil Service Commission is formally in charge of keeping this structure accurate. Whenever someone consistently works outside his assigned classification, this body is supposed to reclassify him. For example the commission might conclude that an engineer had been doing the work of a subprofessional engineering aide and therefore downgrade him. In so doing, commissioners would eliminate a professional position and substitute another for it. The city manager has a twofold interest in accurate classification. First, if the labels describe behavior he has a shorthand way of knowing what personnel in the organization actually do; it reduces some internal uncertainty. Second, accurate classification means that no one receives more pay than he should. Since class label determines salary, a failure to keep classification up-to-date can result in an employee being over-

32

Personnel Policy in the City

paid or underpaid. The manager suspects that the former is the more frequent occurrence. Although the city manager values accurate classification, the existing array of forces makes such precision unlikely. The Civil Service Commission holds the authority to reclassify individuals but depends on the personnel director to bring the need for such decisions to its attention; the personnel director and his staff, however, seldom have much knowledge concerning which positions are misclassified. Moreover, they have little incentive to increase their information. The director senses that his status among department heads will decline if he constantly acts as a spokesmen for accurate classification. Since more honor flows to him if he focuses on recruitment the personnel director naturally sees little sense in spending time doing unwelcome exploratory studies. Furthermore, the director knows that even if he finds a position that needs reclassification, the Civil Service Commission may not approve the action. The commission dislikes moving employees downward in the hierarchy because it means that their salaries will be cut. The director can count on commission support only if he recommends an upward classification which would increase wage costs. City departments also have few incentives for reporting inaccuracies. The incumbent in a position sees little reason to notify civil service that he is improperly labeled particularly if it would lead to downgrading and a resulting pay cut. Similarly, the supervisor or department head sees no advantage in consuming time and suffering a loss of prestige among subordinates by zealously searching for misclassification. To the extent that department heads become involved at all, it is mainly to get an employee upgraded; such reclassification gives them a position that has more skills associated with it. In sum, the actors in the civil service office's environment communicate about classification infrequently and then primarily when it costs the city more money.12 Aware of the tendency toward inaccuracy and the overgrading of employees, the city manager in 1969 successfully advo12 For discussions of classification behavior, see Bernard H. Baum, Decentralization ofAuthority in a Bureaucracy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1961), pp. 89-129; and Jay M. Shafritz, Position Classification: A Behavioral Analysis for the Public Service (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973).

Politics of Manpower

33

cated hiring the classification consultant, GriffenhagenKroeger, for $40,000. Examining all agencies except police and fire, this firm suggested that city hall reclassify from 10 to 20 percent of all civilian employees, the majority of them downward. The incentives pattern which fosters misclassification remains untouched. But the hiring of the consultant serves to illustrate further the city manager's interest in and leverage over manpower decisions. His commitment to shaping such choices goes beyond the budgetary arena.

THE POLITICS OF REORGANIZING POSITIONS

City officials at times change the location of positions in the formal authority structure; often the reorganization shifts positions from one department to another. Such activities are an integral part of manpower politics. The problems endemic to relocating slots are complex. Is it wise to decentralize? Should officials allocate positions in a way that promotes conflict and redundancy among agencies?13 What is the relationship between grouping certain positions together and productivity? Convincing answers to these questions are in short supply. Many can only conclude that there is no one best way.14 Yet Oakland's city manager experiences relatively little uncertainty about the best way to structure positions within the bureaucracy. To be sure it is easier for him to compute the fiscal impact of adding or subtracting manpower than of reshuffling positions. This does not, however, drive him toward an administrative agnosticism with respect to relocating slots. The city manager feels that over the long run, adherence to certain principles will foster economy and efficiency in city hall. At the core of his credo is the belief that centralizing authority and reducing overlap will have desirable consequences. In his view, gaining authority more commensurate with his responsi13 For an excellent analysis of redundancy see Martin Landau, "Redundancy, Rationality and the Problem of Duplication and Overlap," Public Administration Review 29 (July/August 1969): 346-358. 14 See, for example, C. West Churchman, The Systems Approach (New York: Dell, 1968), p. 229.

34

Personnel Policy in the City

bility, and making procedures and jurisdictions "neat and clean" are the essentials of sound management. This attitude finds expression in his activities. On taking office in 1966, he was upset by the fragmented city bureaucracy which awaited him. At the time, there were over twenty departments, including five major ones run by semi-autonomous commissions (parks, recreation, museum, library, and civil service). Though his predecessor had warned him that efforts to place positions in these agencies directly under his authority would fail, the city manager soon set out to strip the commissions of their prerogatives. Emphasizing that reorganization would save the city $900,000, the city manager convinced the mayor, business leaders, the Oakland Tribune, and others to support a ballot proposition which would shift authority to him. In 1968, a narrow majority of the voters approved the proposition. Position relocations involving charter revision are, of course, the exception rather than the rule. On other occasions the city manager has had an easier time fostering reorganizations. Using his authority, status, and expertise to good advantage, he has reduced the number of agencies by about one-third since 1968. Under his auspices, for example, parks and recreation departments merged and two superdepartments, the Office of Public Works and the Office of General Services, were created from smaller units. Through these mergers, the city manager hoped to reduce the overlap in functions among different agencies and improve coordination. In arranging position shifts, the city manager has met no serious opposition. Unlike the president of the United States, the city manager has few worries about bureaucrats mobilizing outside constituencies or legislative committees to resist a reallocation of slots. Unless reorganizing positions involves charter change, the scope of conflict is usually limited to the manager and the agency heads. The city council seldom intervenes since it respects the manager as an administrative expert. Employee organizations abstain unless a move threatens the civil service office or increases the likelihood of layoffs. Citizen groups generally do not recognize the significance of transfers for broader policy questions.

Politics of Manpower

35

It is, then, high-level department officials who believe that they have a direct stake in transfers. But how do they perceive these stakes? Taking a hint from Downs's contention that bureaucracies seek to expand, we might conclude that agency heads feel victorious whenever they gain positions. After all, securing more slots contributes to their prestige within the organization and increases their ability to provide services. In fact, however, department heads do not invariably view the acquisition of positions as a victory; an episode involving the Department of Traffic Engineering and Parking helps to illustrate this. Agency heads may be reluctant manpower imperialists.1S Prior to 1969 the traffic engineering department handled such routine functions as traffic surveys, curb and street lane painting, and the installation and maintenance of name signs, traffic signals, and parking meters. Then in 1968, the police chief gave the head of traffic engineering an opportunity to expand when he told the city manager that Oakland should employ meter maids rather than uniformed policemen to enforce parking regulations, and that the manager should remove this enforcement function from the police department. From the chiefs perspective parking enforcement was a low-priority area that brought him hostile protests from ticketed drivers and businessmen who feared overzealous enforcement near their stores. By dropping this function, his department would suffer no actual loss in personnel and would rid itself of an activity that hurt police status. The city manager, after discussion with the chief, tentatively decided to support the proposal. Shortly thereafter he suggested to the traffic director that his agency might supervise the activity. The city manager soon learned, however, that the traffic director had reservations about assuming the new duties even if it meant personnel expansion. While the director believed that planning and maintenance of meters belonged in his department's jurisdiction, he was uncertain about meter enforcement. He and his professional staff might pay opportu15 For a general discussion of bureaucratic imperialism see Matthew Holden, Jr., "Imperialism in Bureaucracy," American Political Science Review 55 (December 1966): 943-951.

36

Personnel Policy in the City

nity costs in supervising the meter checkers; time for planning and professional duties was already scarce without taking on lower priority tasks. Moreover the traffic director was aware that absorbing the function would bring him the potentially hostile constituencies of parking violators and local businessmen. While the director believed that meter enforcement did relate to his agency's aspiration to promote traffic safety, he was chary of taking over the function. Faced with a reluctant, uncertain traffic director, the city manager called for more study. He asked the agency head to survey other cities to determine the practices they used. This kind of study (which is standard procedure whenever Oakland officials contemplate nonroutine change) would not only increase city hall's information but provide the traffic director with time to reflect. The results of the research were far from conclusive. Analyzing the practices of cities Oakland's size on the West Coast, the director found that one-half of the sampled governments placed parking enforcement in the police department and that about one-fourth put it under traffic engineering. In the end the study was only one factor that shaped the choice of the director. By the time of its completion the manager had offered the director the accident analysis function if he accepted parking enforcement. The director had long wanted to assume the former activity. Faced with this enticement, aware that a precedent existed for such a step in Seattle and Portland, and not wanting to damage his reputation with the manager by being troublesome, the director agreed to become responsible for the meter maids. The behavior of Oakland's traffic director suggests that an agency head will view a transfer favorably if it provides him with personnel: (a) who perform functions closely tied to major agency goals; (b) who will not require substantial supervision by his present staff; and (c) who will not involve him with hostile external constituencies. Hence Oakland's traffic director felt reluctant to add meter enforcement because he did not believe it was as important as more basic traffic engineering, because the new employees would require considerable surveil-

Politics of Manpower

37

lance, and because outside groups were bound to complain about enforcement decisions.16 Taking factors like these into account, then, agency heads usually develop firm opinions about the desirability of a transfer. Whether these attitudes lead to action is another matter. As the case of the meter maids illustrates, resistance is difficult. Documenting a case against a proposed position shuffle is often impossible. If an agency head resists too emphatically, he risks developing a reputation for being uncooperative and uninterested in new responsibility. Department imperialism succeeds if the manager approves. If transfers are often hard to resist, they are also perplexing to arrange. Many of Oakland's top bureaucrats are at least latent manpower imperialists. But acting on this disposition is difficult. For instance the traffic engineer would like to absorb street lighting and signal maintenance personnel from the Office of General Services. Despite this aspiration he has not attempted to obtain them. The traffic director feels that he lacks a good justification for imperialism since General Services has given his agency adequate support. A further barrier to action is his realization that the director of General Services enjoys considerable prestige with the city manager. (The chief executive at one point showed his faith in the director of General Services by making him his acting assistant.) If, therefore, another agency head has preserved his status with the city manager, the imperialistic aspirations of an expansionist bureaucrat are likely to go unfulfilled. On the other hand, when the leadership of another agency has limited prestige with the city manager and the expansionist department head can appeal to the manager's basic organizing values (for example, centralization, reduction or overlap), the likelihood of a transfer increases. Thus the traffic director did persuade the city manager to shift five slots from the Off-Street Parking Commission to his agency.17 The fact that commissioners reMorton H. Halperin, "Why Bureaucrats Play Games," Foreign Policy 2 (Spring 1971): 80, discusses a similar phenomenon. 17 Examples from the traffic engineering department in part come from interviews which Eric Sears conducted there in 1966 and 1967.

Personnel Policy in the City

38

ceived their appointments from the mayor undermined thenstatus with the city manager. By shifting personnel away from the commission's control, the city manager reaffirmed his faith in centralized administrative authority. Agency heads can, then, occasionally encourage a desirable transfer but only if they can convince the manager that such a move is sound. As in decision concerning how many of what type of manpower to employ, the manager is the dominant figure. His veto power is secure. Unless a move requires charter change, what he initiates or approves will prevail most of the time.

OUTCOMES

What have been the results of this control pattern for outcomes? By looking at shifts in position allocations to departments since the city manager took office, we can begin to grapple with the issue. In terms of the overall work force, Table 4 shows that over a five-year period the manager has kept the bureaucracy from expanding rapidly. During this time the number of man-years rose by about 195, or 39 annually. This is an increase of only 5.7 percent, or slightly more than 1.1 percent per year. This rate is less than the national average for municipal governments, 2.9 percent. 18 T A B L E 4 : MAN-YEARS INCREASE SLIGHTLY EACH YEAR, 1 9 6 5 - 1 9 7 0

Fiscal year

Full-time man-years

Part-time man-years

Total man-years

1965-66 1966-67 1967-68 1968-69 1969-70 1970-71

3194.0 3228.0 3250.2 3253.7 3353.6 3396.7

235.0 237.8 235.8 232.9 216.1 226.9

3429.0 3465.8 3486.0 3486.6 3569.7 3623.6

Increase over previous year +36.8 +20.2 + .6 +83.1 +53.9

Percentage of increase over previous year 1.1 .6 .0 2.4 1.5

Source: Oakland Preliminary Budgets. " International City Managers Association, Municipal Year Book, 1967, p. 228. Since it does not give data for the same period I examined, a comparison must be treated cautiously. It notes that from 1958 to 1968, the number of full-time positions rose from 1,372,000 to 1,813,000.

T A B L E 5 : PERSONNEL EXPANDING, MAINTAINING, AND SHRINKING IN OAKLAND CITY DEPARTMENTS, 1 9 6 6 / 7 1

Type of department

1966/67 Manyears

Formal function

1970/71 Man-years

Difference

Percentage of increase over 1966/67

Expanding Finance

Accounting and budget preparation

8.0

104.5

96.5

1206.2

Traffic Traffic planning, trafEngineering lie marking upkeep, and Parking meter repair and enforcement

34.1

63.0

28.9

84.8

Museum

Art, history, and science exhibits

61.0

87.6

26.6

43.6

Purchasing

Contracting for services and supplies

21.3

27.8

6.5

30.5

Municipal Buildings

City building maintenance and security

107.9

135.0

27.1

25.1

Police

Crime prevention and law enforcement

909.9

1033.3

123.4

13.6

City Attorney

Counsel and legal advice to the city

17.0

18.0

1.0

5.9

Equipment

Maintenance of city mobile equipment

49.0

51.0

2.0

4.1

Civil Service Recruitment and selection, employee records

18.2

18.5

0.3

1.6

Maintaining

Parks

Operation parks

of

city

198.1

199.2

1.1

0.6

Recreation

Recreational

pro-

323.6

325.4

1.8

0.6

Fire

Fire prevention and firefighting

684.0

685.0

1.0

0.1

Electrical

Maintenance of city electrical facilities

72.0

70.0

-2.0

-2.8

Streets and

Construction

450.6

428.4

-22.2

-4.9

grams and operation of recreational facilities

and

Engineering m a i n t e n a n c e of streets, sewers and storm drains

40

Personnel Policy in the City TABLE 5—Continued

Type of department

Formal function

1966/67 Manyears

1970/71 DifferMan-years ence

Percentage of increase over 1966/67

Housing, building, plumbing, mechanical and electrical inspections

89.3

84.0

-5.3

-5.9

City Planning

Zoning, planning for future in city

26.2

23.3

-2.9

-11.1

Library

Collection and lending of books and other media

250.5

205.0

-45.5

-18.2

City Auditor

Auditing of books, accounts, money, and securities of city

51.0

6.0

-45.0

-88.2

Building and Housing Shrinking

Source: Oakland Preliminary Budgets.

A focus on the particular agencies that have won or lost slots also provides insight into the manager's values. We can divide Oakland's departments according to whether they are expanding, maintaining, or contracting their work force. In Table 5 expanding departments are those that have increased their man-years by more than 10 percent over five years; maintaining departments have had man-year changes of from minus 10 percent to plus 10 percent; shrinking departments have lost more than 10 percent of their man-years. While the manager has initiated reorganizations during the period considered, most units have remained constant in identity. Consequently, while eight departments now fall into the larger Offices of Public Works and General Services, we can still identify the number of man-years allocated to the original department. The changes indicated in Table 5 have occurred in part as a result of budgetary decisions and in part because of transfers. Of the six expanding departments, traffic engineering and parking, purchasing, and municipal buildings grew substantially through position shifts. The other agencies expanded by having portions of their budget requests granted. Another

Politics of Manpower

41

pattern is that, with the possible exception of the museum, changes are not a consequence of the city adding new functions or giving up old ones. Rather, they primarily reflect managerial reassessment of the number of men needed to perform longstanding activities. In terms of more fundamental values, the patterns of growth and shrinkage reflect a desire to economize, to reduce internal organizational uncertainty for top management, and to minimize risk for Oakland citizens. The patterns also reveal a willingness to honor commitments that the manager's predecessor had made. Reduce internal organization uncertainty and economize. The city manager's concern with reducing internal organizational uncertainty and with economizing accounts for the growth of at least three departments (finance, purchasing, and municipal buildings) and the contraction of two (library and city auditor). The finance office expanded because it is the manager's main weapon in his fight to control the rest of the organization. Among other things it is the arm that he uses to gather and synthesize information. In this capacity, its staff scrutinizes budget requests, carries out various studies aimed at saving the city money, and operates the new electronic data processing system. Some of finance's expansion came at the expense of the city auditor. Shortly after assuming office, the manager became convinced that the auditor's office had failed to supply him with necessary data. Moreover, since the auditor was an elected official, the manager exerted less power over the office than he wanted to wield. Consequently he persuaded the council to shift a net total of 45 positions from the auditor to the finance director. Finance has also gained 57.5 man-years in its own right, particularly for its electronic data processing unit, and for its other divisions as well. His aspirations to economize caused the manager to enlarge the purchasing and municipal buildings divisions. Convinced that fragmentation had previously caused the hiring of more personnel than were necessary, he directed that the municipal buildings division take over janitorial services for the library branches and the new museum, and that purchasing absorb all duplicating functions in city hall. The purchasing unit also

42

Personnel Policy in the City

received new staff to analyze ways of enhancing efficiency in procurement and contract procedures. The decline in library personnel resulted from the manager's belief that the department was inefficient. When outside and inside analysts confirmed the manager's suspicion, he and the finance department arranged to cut costs through reorganization and the elimination of professional positions through attrition. The slight contraction of the city planning department also stemmed from a desire to economize, though in a different way. In 1964 the Area Redevelopment Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded city hall a grant for the preparation of a comprehensive development plan. With federal largesse coming in, the manager increased the staff of the city planning department. As the study neared completion and federal support began dwindling, the manager gradually eliminated slots from the agency. Reduce risk for citizens. When a problem involves a serious risk to life and property, even fiscal conservatives become spenders. Thus, Oakland's police department, in an absolute sense, has increased its numbers more than any other agency. The reason for this expansion has been the manager's distaste for rising crime rates. The rate of serious crimes increased each year during the last half of the sixties, attaining a record 52 percent increase in 1968. Although uncertain about the precise causal relationship between more police manpower and safer streets, the manager believed that giving the police chief more positions was the most direct way to tackle the problem. Faced with a high-risk problem and the absence of persuasive, less expensive alternatives, the manager will add personnel. To modify Downs's theory,19 then, remoteness and uncertainty of benefits need not necessarily produce an unwillingness to invest in a program. When dealing with high-risk areas such as defense or police work, the fear of doing too little may actually lead to an exaggeration of the return on an investment. Commitment to an attack on major crime indirectly led the traffic engineering and parking department to expand. As indi19 Downs,

Inside Bureaucracy, 1960.

Politics of Manpower

43

cated earlier, the city manager became convinced that police officers should concentrate on more serious criminal investigation and consequently shifted responsibility for enforcing parking regulations to the traffic engineering director. Past commitments shape expansion. The traffic engineering department also has expanded because of commitments made before the present city manager took office. Dissatisfied with deteriorating traffic control, faced with new federal requirements for traffic planning, and concerned about the impact of the new Bay Area Rapid Transit system, the council in 1964 agreed to support traffic engineering expansion. Respecting this pledge, the city manager allowed the department six full-time positions his first year in office. The growth of the museum also stemmed from decisions made before the present manager took office. Voters approved a bond issue for a new museum in the early sixties and the manager felt obliged to expand services and maintain a high-status operation.

CONCLUSION

The city manager has shaped manpower trends in Oakland more than any other single actor. Wielding his authority and status, he regularly beats back department efforts to expand through the budgetary process. He is also the pivotal figure in most reorganizations. The city manager's considerable leverage, his widely understood commitments, and the presence of scorecards help reduce decision uncertainty. With leverage centralized, others have less to consider when anticipating the consequences of their tactics; agency heads, for example, need not ponder how elected officials will respond to their gambits. The city manager's persistent commitment to economizing also reduces uncertainty. Department heads need not wonder whether this year the manager will be pro- or anti-expansion; the manager consistently opposes increases in personnel. Scorecards also help players get their bearings. Changes in personnel expenditures and changes in the number of different kinds of manpower within city hall help players gauge the payoffs of their tactics.

44

Personnel Policy in the City

Given the objectives of Oakland officials, manpower decision making poses few uncertainties for officials. The city manager believes that he knows how to resist bureaucratic expansion; department heads sense that they will win few positions regardless of what they do. By comparison, officials face more information deficits when they grapple with the politics of pay.

3 The Politics of Pay: Policemen as Pace Setters There are some employees who want everything yesterday. Past President, Oakland Firefighters' Local # 5 5 Vowing not to strike is like sending a policeman into the streets without his gun. Past President Oakland Police Officers Association

Climate, supportive work groups, an interesting job, prestige, money, and countless other factors can entice people to work for local government.1 Conceivably top city officials might worry about all these incentives and their relationship to productivity. In fact, however, only material ones usually receive much consideration from leading policy makers. One reason for this is that the law generally requires officials to set salaries and fringe benefits each year. Another reason for the disproportionate attention material benefits garner is that they are easily tallied. By comparison, for instance, high-level officials know much less about the level of supportive work1 For a typology of incentives, sec Peter B. Clark and James Q. Wilson, "Incentive Systems: A Theory of Organizations," in The National Administrative System, ed. Dean L. Yarwood (New York: John Wiley, 1971), pp. 277-278. See also, Chester Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 139-160.

45

46

Personnel Policy in the City

group incentives present in the organization. A readily quantified incentive, particularly if the numbers are dollars, will tend to capture more attention, even though other "softer" incentives may be equally significant for effective performance. This chapter focuses on how Oakland City Hall deals with salary and fringe benefit issues. Pay matters involve a broad range of questions: Who should get how much more money? What kind of insurance should the city provide? How many hours should firemen work? Mundane as these queries may appear, they all have political ramifications. For instance, the higher the pay and fringe benefits, the more likely is city government to attract competent people. On the other hand, the more money paid for salaries the greater will be the tax burden on Oakland citizens and the less likely is city hall to expand services by hiring more people. The strategies various actors employ in settling such issues also have political implications. The age-old issue of whether public employee strikes are compatible with the functioning of democracy is illustrative.2 Three basic sets of actors participate in pay politics in Oakland—the manager and his staff, the mayor and council, and major employee organizations.3 Table 6 lists three major employee organizations along with some of their basic attributes, such as monthly dues levied, total membership, and the percentage of eligible employees who belong. Oakland's city manager and elected politicians do not play the politics of pay purely to economize. While they wish to hold concessions in check, they believe that pay rates should be competitive. Most employee leaders, on the other hand, prefer to be pace setters. For these leaders Oakland should not stay with the pack in terms of material benefits: it should lead. These basic values shape the behavior of actors as they deal with both procedural and substantive pay politics. The former refers to interaction over the nature of the decision-making 2 For discussions of the impact of employee organizations on democracy, see Frederick C. Mosher, Democracy and the Public Service (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968) and Raymond D. Horton. Municipal Labor Relations in New York City : Lessons of the Lindsay-Wagner Years (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973). 3 Conspicuous by their absence are material incentives actors who are quite active in other cities—namely, people who bribe officials for favors (consider the case of the New York City Police Department, for example).

Politics of Pay

47

T A B L E 6 : M A J O R E M P L O Y E E ORGANIZATIONS IN OAKLAND, J U N E

Organization

Approximate membership in city hall

Types of employees who are eligible

1971*

Approximate percentage of eligible who are members

Approximate dues per month per member (excluding insurance) (dollars)

Oakland Police Officers Association

710

Uniformed policemen, captain or below

99

7.00

Oakland Firefighters Association

640

Uniformed fire employees

99

7.20

Oakland Municipal Civil Service Employees Association

850

All city employees except uniformed police and fire

41

4.50

United Public Employees Union No. 1 (AFL-CIO Affiliate)

475

All city employees except uniformed police and fire

23

6.00

* By major employee organization, I mean one with over 100 Oakland city employees as members.

structure; the latter refers to the maneuvers of actors as they attempt to influence directly annual pay and fringe benefit choices.

THE POLITICS OF PROCEDURE: THE MANAGER ATTEMPTS A HOLDING ACTION

Oakland's manager has not only faced the yearly problem of what pay boosts and merit raises to give, but has also felt compelled to confront basic questions concerning the appropriate decision process. Employee leaders have been responsible for this. Like groups elsewhere, they believe that a new collective bargaining period has dawned. Past ways of doing things must be abandoned. A procedural problem exists which cries out for solution. When confronted with militant employees demanding "improved" procedures, a few chief executives might take the lead in sponsoring change. A devotee of participative management

48

Personnel Policy in the City

might do so, as would an executive who thought that concessions would earn him valuable cooperation from employee leaders at a later point. Many city officials do not favor participative decision structures, however; so too, many do not believe that employee leaders return favors. Such officials often see value in a holding action. Adopting this strategy a city manager or mayor denies that there is a problem and does nothing to change procedures until specifically challenged by an employee group or some other adversary. Then officials fight to preserve the status quo or make small concessions.4 Oakland's city manager opted for a holding action. The strategy has, however, brought him only partial success. In fact, he lost the first major structural battle he fought. Understanding the sense in which this is so requires a brief historical review. Oakland has a system of pay setting by formula. When the present city manager took office in 1966, Oakland used formulae to set salaries. This approach to salary determination had come about as a result of action by the public safety organizations in 1958. In that year police and fire groups succeeded in their efforts to gain voter approval for Proposition C. This proposition was an amendment to the charter which linked police and fire department salaries to those of industrial workers in the Bay Area and, thereby, relieved the council of its authority to set wages (though not fringe benefits). Each year the California Division of Labor Statistics published data showing the percentage by which industrial wages had increased. Proposition C guaranteed public safety workers that their pay would rise at the same rate. The employees knew that the formula would not assure precise increases, but that it would probably enable them to keep up with the rising cost of living. In a sense the amendment enabled employee leaders to have their cake and eat it too. Workers in the industrial sector, represented by their unions, would win substantial pay raises. Police and firemen would not have to engage in militant bargaining, which was widely seen as illegitimate for them, but would benefit from negotiations in the private sector. 4 A third basic strategy is to depart from the status quo by attempting to destroy or drastically undermine the union movement.

Politics of Pay

49

The Proposition C formula applied only to uniformed police and fire employees and not to the majority of city bureaucrats. The latter continued under the old decision framework whereby employee groups would lobby with councilmen for concessions. From 1959 on, however, city officials increasingly saw advantages in the formula method. By February 1962 the council had passed an ordinance (not a charter amendment) establishing the Reading Formula. This formula was applicable to all personnel other than uniformed police and firemen. It linked the salaries of these employees to the average paid for comparable work in thirteen other public jurisdictions.5 Adopting this decision rule, the council believed that Oakland's salaries would be competitive but not excessive; pay rates would allow the city to compete for competent personnel but would not lead the field. Moreover, calculating yearly increases would become easier. For employees the formula meant that annual increases, while far from pace setting, would probably be forthcoming. The introduction of "C" and the Reading Formula illustrate an important feature of pay politics in Oakland. Action by police and fire leaders is usually instrumental in producing a new salary setting phase. These two organizations (especially the police) press for innovation in the decision structure and the changes produced come to apply not only to public safety organizations but to other employee groups as well. Support cumbersome change procedures. When Oakland's city manager assumed office in the mid-sixties, then, a system of salary setting by formula existed. As for fringe benefits (for example, overtime, vacations, retirement, equipment subsidies) council authority remained legitimate. Employee leaders would seek more perquisites but do little other than grumble if officials made no concessions. Times were changing, however. Shortly after the city manager arrived on the scene, employee leaders became more assertive and vociferous. Some complaints came from union leaders who 5 The Reading Formula drew data from thirteen jurisdictions: seven cities (San Francisco, Berkeley, Richmond, Alameda, San Leandro, San Jose, Hay ward), three counties Contra Costa, San Mateo, Alameda) and three other jurisdictions (Oakland Schools, State of California, University of California). For "trade and crafts" workers, the city adds a fourteenth sample—union scale less any difference in the cost of city and private industry fringe benefits.

50

Personnel Policy in the City

were trying to organize the less skilled workers in the bureaucracy. But as usual the more important catalyst for change was the police association. Leaders of the association believed that the prestige of police work had risen during the late sixties as "respectable" citizens began to view officers as a bulwark against crime and disorder. At the same time they felt that their work had become more dangerous, unpleasant, and controversial. An excerpt from a letter which police association spokesmen sent to the manager in part conveys their mood. The rigorous pressures and arduous demands faced by police officers during the working year should be countered with a vacation free from worry. Officers should be encouraged to travel with their wives and children to places of peace and serenity, and thoroughly enjoy their lives as they are unable to do during the rest of the year. The social deprivation and degradation that become daily experiences for officers present taxing emotional stresses to greater degrees than any other occupation, except perhaps the combat conditions of war.

Convinced that their lot was difficult and that respectable people were according them more prestige as the "thin blue line," policemen aggressively sought pay boosts. In 1968, they asked the council to grant them salary concessions beyond those authorized by "C." Police leaders argued that the formula prescribed a minimum salary increase rather than the precise amount. The manager, mayor, and certain council members did not want to modify "C," since it could only cost them more money and cause them to spend more time setting salaries. They contended that "C" specified the precise increase and not the minimum. If police officers wanted to alter the rule, these officials argued that they should take it to the voters. The manager and his coalition believed that the police association did not want to spend resources on an election campaign. Holding out the ballot box as the only avenue of change might well discourage public safety workers from trying at all. Thus actors opposed to change will tend to support cumbersome procedures which make change more costly to obtain. While in 1958 the police association leadership saw advantages in having the formula written into the charter, its location

Politics of Pay

51

there now threatened to thwart them. Ultimately police spokesmen prevailed, however. Five councilmen decided to show good faith and double the amount Proposition C decreed. Later the courts upheld the action, thereby rejecting the manager's procedural argument. Police success in reinterpreting "C" meant the abolition of a previously firm decision rule and thereby drove the manager toward more complex calculations. As if his defeat by the police association had not been sufficient, action by the state legislature weakened the manager's position further. In 1968 the California legislature passed the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act which provided that the public employer had to "meet and confer in good faith with representatives of recognized employee organizations." The act was vague. Compared with other states which had dealt with labor problems, the California statute gave considerable leeway to local governments.6 Uncertain as its impact was, however, local actors viewed its passage as a victory for public employee organizations. As 1969 began, then, the manager and the council faced a number of questions. Should they set up a new bargaining representative? Should they allocate more time to discussions? With which employee leaders should they bargain? What should be the scope of negotiable issues? The new state law suggested that local officials arrive at answers to all these questions and more, but laid down few guidelines. Officials also found it difficult to follow the leader by looking to other jurisdictions.7 Since employee relations throughout the country were in flux, it was hard to locate a success story elsewhere and apply the methods used there to Oakland. Confronted with this situation, the city manager continued to pursue his holding strategy and he chose to make no changes. • David Bowen, Peter Feuille, and George Strauss, "The California Experience," in Unionization of Municipal Employees, ed Robert H. Connery and William 0. Farr (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), p. 123. They note "The evolving California system is clearly less legalistic than some others. There is no state-wide Public Employment Relations Board to develop a body of law on its own, and indeed legislation has created few rights which are litigable. Third party intervention . . . is relatively rare. The parties have had to solve their problems themselves." 7 In the face of uncertainty, organizations often look to others for cues as to proper behavior. See Richard M. Cyert and James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963), p. 102.

52

Personnel

Policy in the City

The fact that the new state law was ambiguous and state officials had allocated few resources to enforcing its spirit permitted use of this strategy, which from the manager's perspective had two main advantages: first, it promised to give him more time to assess precisely what his interests were; second, it forced employee leaders to spend resources to bring about change. They would get very little for free. Ultimately employee spokesmen paid the costs necessary to produce procedural modifications. Once again, the police association played the major role in precipitating structural change. By June 1969 the manager, using old procedures, had settled with all employee organizations concerning salaries and had made a recommendation to the council concerning police benefits. But the police association refused to accept the decision. Matters dragged on through July and into early August when last-minute concessions by the manager and council prevented a strike. The manager interpreted the near-strike to mean that resources were shifting in value and usage. He believed that the worth of council authority was declining as policemen displayed a greater willingness to deny legitimacy and withhold services. Consequently he decided to create a bargaining agent and commit more time to negotiations. The manager creates an advocate he can control. A city manager who values internal control and economy will attempt to appoint his own collective bargaining representative and have that agent report directly to him. Thus Oakland's city manager moved quickly when the mayor and council took steps to establish an agent responsible to them. Disturbed by the conflict with the police, the mayor had appointed three councilmen to a special Employee Relations Committee in July 1969. At the time, one councilman thought that the committee might become a major forum for discussions between employees and top policy makers. The manager, however, did not want such a situation to develop. He doubted that the committee had the time and expertise needed to handle bargaining. Moreover the committee would prove to be a bothersome contingency for him. Council concessions to the police in 1968 had shown him how unreliable the body could be. As a result he appointed

Politics of Pay

53

the finance director, the assistant to the city manager and the personnel director to a special Meet and Confer Committee which was to be in charge of negotiations. Except for the personnel director, who was under the authority of the Civil Service Commission, the committee consisted of close associates. As much as any group, it would serve as a conduit for his will. The city manager's concern with establishing a compliant bargaining agent did not end with the appointment of the Meet and Confer Committee. It also led him to resist employee requests for compulsory arbitration, a procedure which would have given employees the opportunity to circumvent the city manager in the bargaining process. Compulsory arbitration, as proposed in Oakland, would have given arbiters the right to impose a settlement if city officials reached an impasse with employees. Union and association leaders had no illusions that compulsory arbitration would invariably lead to generous settlements. Nonetheless they believed that outsiders would be more liberal with concessions than the tight-fisted city manager. Above all, arbitration would have removed the need to rely on strikes. Even militant groups do not relish the costs and uncertainty of withdrawing services. The leadership faces difficulties rallying the rank-and-file behind such action; members may lose their salaries for the duration of the strike; the legality of such action is obscure; leaders risk their status when one occurs (in effect, they gamble that the extra concessions a strike wins will convince the union membership that the tactic was worthwhile). So great was employee leader distaste for the strike, that many promised to pledge never to take such action if the manager would grant them compulsory arbitration. For the manager, however, prospects of soaring fiscal costs seemed greater if the council relinquished its authority. An arbiter would not have the same incentives to hold down concessions as the manager yyould. Moreover, an exchange of authority for guaranteed services hardly seemed worth it. It was too early to tell whether employee leaders were serious about striking. Employee spokesmen had made similar threats previously and nothing had happened. Thus, when elected politicians showed some signs of not knowing how to respond

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to a police request for arbitration in 1969, the manager's staff counseled against it. At an open session, the assistant to the city manager argued before the council that the public (specifically the taxpayers) would not receive adequate consideration under the plan. He warned council members that arbiters would be too far remove from Oakland to understand its problem. A majority of the council eventually backed the manager and has consistently denied the employee request. Concede time reluctantly. One component of an employee relations holding strategy is to reduce negotiating time. Acutely aware that time is a scarce resource, Oakland's city manager felt reluctant to spend many hours with employee leaders after the passage of the state law.8 Instead he followed the old practice of calling few meetings. For instance, the head of the firefighters noted that the manager had given his group only one-and-a-half hours of negotiating time the first year after the new state law went into effect. Another employee leader complained that his allotment was approximately one hour. Moreover, the chief executive tended to call meetings abruptly. The firefighters' president relates how the manager's office would call in the morning to set up meetings for the afternoon. The near-strike by the police association convinced the manager that more negotiations with all groups were inevitable. In sum, a powerful employee group tends to force a city's chief executive to accept the principle of negotiation. The principle then begins to govern the executive's relations with less potent groups. Thus, the Oakland police association won procedural concessions and made city officials take notice. Weaker and less militant organizations then claimed equal rights. Divide and rule. As part of his holding action, Oakland's city manager has practiced a strategy of divide and rule in response to the problem of union recognition. The MeyersMilias-Brown Act required the manager to recognize certain * California had had a labor law since 1961, when the legislature passed the George Brown Act. "This act merely established the right of all public employees to join organizations and required the governing body of the public agency to 'meet and confer' with representatives of employee organizations upon request, 'and to consider as fully as it seems reasonable such presentation' made by the organization." Under this law, the manager could avoid serious negotiation. Bowen, et al., "The California Experience," p. 110.

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employee representatives as official bargaining agents. In response to the law, the manager did not immediately hold employee elections to determine once and for all which union and association leaders would have exclusive rights to represent certain classes of bureaucrats. Instead he recognized all employee groups presently operating in city hall. By so doing, the city manager encouraged unions and associations to compete for members in the same class of employees (for example, among janitors). In fact competition for new recruits was persistent and intense between the Oakland Municipal Civil Service Employees Association and the United Public Employees Union Local #1. From the manager's perspective this competition was useful. Bickering among these two major employee groups meant that they were unlikely to cooperate in a strike action. It meant that neither group could claim to speak exclusively for certain classes of bureaucrats. The city manager believed that this weakened both the union and association at the bargaining table and that, consequently, there would be less risk in denying their wage demands. Only in 1971, after local # 1 made employee elections a central bargaining issue, did the city manager agree to poll employees and establish clear union jurisdictions. Keep issue scope narrow. In addition to seeking leverage through a recognition policy based on divide and rule, the city manager has attempted to keep the scope of negotiable issues narrow. From the city manager's perspective, the fewer items he discusses with employee leaders the better. Of course the city manager knows that unions and associations have state guaranteed rights to negotiate some issues with him (for example, pay raises). There are, however, other matters, primarily dealing with the administration of fringe benefits, where the formal prerogatives of the rank and file are more ambiguous. Although employee spokesmen want to be consulted, the manager believes he can implement changes unilaterally. Following this practice, the manager avoids overestimating the resources of his opponents and their will to resist. Employee spokesmen must earn every concession by spending time (and perhaps money,) contesting issues. They are constantly in the position of trying to overturn a choice which the manager has

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already made. To be sure, this tactic also has potential costs for the chief executive. If employee leaders do succeed in reversing a decision, it often means the disruption of a newly instituted practice. The opportunity costs that city officials paid to implement the change may be for naught. So too can unilateral action undermine the status of the manager with rank-and-file employees. Complaints of gross indifference to the welfare of the lower echelons at times result. On balance, however, the city manager thinks that the benefits of making the choice himself outweigh the costs. Often the modifications he introduces go unchallenged. On occasion, however, employee groups have resisted. The issue need not be a major one to trigger conflict. For instance in 1970 the city manager ordered police captains living outside Oakland to stop driving city cars home at night. The manager had received a number of complaints from citizens concerning the practice. Moreover, regularly subsidizing transportation to surrounding communities seemed economically wasteful. But the captains perceived that the manager had no right to deprive them of their cars and soon appealed to the Oakland Police Officers Association for support. The association responded favorably, hiring the law firm of Davis, Cowell, and Bowe to handle the case. In court the police attorney argued that the city had "flagrantly violated its obligations under the MeyersMilias-Brown Act by the unilateral action which changed an existing long established practice." In November 1970 a superior court judge sided with the captains and ordered city officials to meet and confer with them about the issue. On occasion, then, employee leaders have picked up the gauntlet and have challenged managerial choices by enlarging the scope of conflict to include the courts. Often the judiciary has used its authority to force the manager to discuss matters fully when he has not wanted to do so. Such court decisions have not, however, defined once and for all which issues are negotiable. This ambiguity encourages the manager to continue with his unilateral decision making. In sum, Oakland's manager has faced a constant struggle over the nature of the decision-making structure since taking office. By and large he has engaged in a holding action which

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at times helped him contain employee thrusts. But often employee groups, led by the Oakland Police Officers Association and abetted by the state legislature, have won. BARGAINING OVER PAY

The manager and council only sporadically confront basic structural issues. Specific requests for salary and fringe benefit adjustments, by contrast, constitute a far more frequently recurring problem. The tactics which various actors use in confronting this problem are in flux; nonetheless, there are certain regular features. Each year in late February or early March, employee leaders send a letter asking for more perquisites. Discussions then ensue between each association or union representative and the manager's Meet and Confer Committee. If the various parties agree, they draw up a memorandum of understanding which the manager transmits to the council for passage prior to the advent of the fiscal year. Failure to concur causes the scope of conflict to expand as the council more actively intervenes. When this happens, resolution may not come until August or later. We will consider some of the tactics actors employ as they participate in this decision process. EMPLOYEE TACTICS

Varied as employee groups are, the formulation of a request is a tactical exercise which they all take seriously. The request is important because it demarcates the boundaries of discussion and affects what employee groups will have to trade once bargaining begins. Furthermore an astutely written petition can build the reputations of employee advocates not only with members of their own group but with unaffiliated bureaucrats and those persons who belong to competing unions or associations. Prestige with nonmembers is particularly important to leaders of the civil service employees association and the public employees union # 1 who seek to enlarge their following. Aware of the request's significance, employee representatives assign the chore to special task teams, whose members generally have considerable expertise vis-à-vis pay issues. Many task team

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participants have past experience writing such petitions; a few have taken special collective bargaining courses. Find supportive reference groups. Working over roughly a twomonth period, team members hammer out the official group position. In doing so, they could make judgments without extensive research. Team members might, for instance, arbitrarily decide in fifteen minutes that a 20 percent salary increase would be appropriate. In Oakland, however, they do not operate in this way, but rather spend time searching for information about the views and practices of others. As the writings of social psychology predict, they look for and are most receptive to data which support their general beliefs and values.9 But they do not search simply to reinforce what they know is the appropriate pay aspiration. The data that they accumulate also removes uncertainty concerning how large an increment they should seek; the data function as a guidepost for them. Furthermore, team members believe that the information accrued will lend credence to their arguments when they deal with the city manager's Meet and Confer Committee. For team members, then, the object of the material incentives game at this early point is to find a friendly reference group. In procuring data they tend to rely on the decision rules suggested in Chart 2. Once committee members have sifted through various information sources, they generally adopt a shotgun approach to the final formulation of the request. Their practice is to ask for many different concessions. In 1970, for instance, the Oakland Municipal Civil Service Employees Association sought twenty-one separate concessions including more pay, better retirement benefits, expanded sick leave privileges, more holidays, an ampler educational incentives allowance, more generous uniform subsidies, and more extensive insurance coverage.10 • See, for example, Jerome M. Levine and Gardner Murphy, "The Learning and Forgetting of Controversial Material," Readings in Social Psychology, ed. Eleanor E. Maccoby, Theodore M. Newcomb, and Eugene L. Hartley (New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1958), p. 100. They reiterate the widely supported finding that "an individual notes and remembers material which supports his social attitudes better than material which conflicts with those attitudes." 10 Not all fringe benefit issues are subject to simple negotiation. Many retirement system rules are in the city charter so that a decision to modify them requires voter approval. Charter provisions are quite detailed. For instance, one section deals with the impact of "hernia, heart trouble and pneumonia" on disability pay.

C H A B T 2 : E M P L O Y E E L E A D E R S LOOK FOR S U P P O R T I V E D A T A

Decision rule

Example

1. Scan publications put out by state and national employee groups.

The fringe benefits committee in the police association surveys documents released by the Police Officers Research Association of California (the Oakland chapter is an affiliate) and the Fraternal Order of the Police. A comparable committee, comprised of firemen, relies on materials sent to them by the International Association of Fire Fighters such as Economic Needs of the Fire Fighters.

2. Scrutinize some Department of Labor data.

The firemen's committee often pegs their salary request to the highest standard of living mentioned in the Bureau of Labor Statistics publication, Three Standards of a Living Budget. The police association takes into account cost-of-living increases.

Reject data put out by "pro-management" groups.

The police association leaders will not use information supplied by the League of California Cities because they believe its sympathies are with councils and managers.

4. Get data on cities which have a reputation for paying well.

Fire fighters pay particular attention to what their counterparts receive in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

5. Search through past demands and reiterate them.

Employees leaders in general feel that persistence pays off and resubmit unsatisfied requests.

6. Secure data on material incentives allocated to c o m p a r a b l e classes in Oakland; strive for parity.

Though they ask for a specific pay boost (e.g., 12.7 percent in 1970) fire leaders also emphasize maintaining parity with the salary police officers receive. The leadership of union local # 1 draws on salary data from the Port Commission when it bargains with city officials. The Port Commission has independent salary setting authority and sometimes pays more than city hall for comparable work.

7. Be sensitive to what the membership wants.

Committee members usually claim that they pay attention to the wishes of the elected executive body as well as to the rank and file. One police official boasted that most association requests originate in the locker room. A past president of the fire fighters' association claimed that he

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CHART

Decision rule

Policy in the City 2—Continued Example did as much as he could to placate more militant members "who want everything yesterday." Precise evidence on the linkage between the membership and special committees is missing but it is apparent that committees try to reflect the aspirations of the rank and file.

Employee spokesmen see the shotgun request as the logical bargaining gambit. They have no reputation for economizing to protect with the manager, and they need to present something that they can give up in the move toward a compromise settlement. Furthermore, employee leaders do not believe that asking for a lot and getting a little undermines their status with the membership. Most of the time they can attribute failure to the insensitivity of the city manager. By asking for much, employee representatives hope to raise their prestige as vigorous advocates for the rank and file. When basic objectives are crystallized, employee group leaders usually set some priorities among them. Aware that this knowledge might give city officials an advantage, they keep the information to themselves. Shortly thereafter, executive secretaries (in civilian groups) or lawyers (in public safety organizations) help draft the official request to city policy makers. At a minimum, members of the Meet and Confer Committee, the city manager, and mayor receive copies. Publicize demands in the face of resistance. Employee leaders may attempt to publicize their demands in the press. For instance, in 1970, police leaders sent their request to the publishers of the Oakland Tribune and weekly Montclarion. Both newspapers gave the document coverage, quoting verbatim its opening paragraph: Let us take a close look at an Oakland police officer and attempt to define him—lest we forget. An Oakland Police officer is a bullet ridden body staring blankly to the night sky because he substituted his conscience for the apathy of others. An Oakland police officer is a lonely man searching a darkened warehouse for a hidden burglar so the owner can get a full night's sleep. An Oakland police officer is the man who returned your son's bicycle.

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An Oakland police officer is the man who studied two years for a promotional examination—and lost because another officer studied harder. An Oakland police officer is the man who underwent oral surgery because he turned the other cheek. An Oakland police officer is the nice looking young man that addressed your women's club last week. An Oakland police officer is a pig that the college professor describes to his students. An Oakland police officer is the man who arrested John Doe for petty theft . . . and burglary, and robbery, and rape and murder. An Oakland police officer is your servant.

The article then went on to mention the pay increase that the police sought. Behavior such as that of the police association is more likely if employee spokesmen anticipate a protracted, bitter struggle with city officials and believe that a strike may result. This is in line with a more general proposition which Wilensky has suggested. To paraphrase him, the more an organization is in conflict with its own immediate environment, the more resources it will allocate to making contacts with important segments of the public either to transmit or gather information.11 Hence, the police leadership sent out its message the year after the association almost went on strike. Anticipating trouble again, police representatives sought to boost their status with the public at an early point. Similar considerations shape employee behavior if no settlement has emerged as the new fiscal year approaches. When this occurs, group leaders appear before council meetings and seek press coverage. They strive to justify their claims on the city's purse and they utter vague warnings. At such times militant employee groups also tend to use informational picket lines. In May 1970, for example, from 50 to 100 members of union local # 1 picketed outside City Hall during the Tuesday evening council session, carrying such signs as "Slaves went out with Lincoln," "Don't make us strike," and "Can't buy bread with promises." Through such pickets, employee leaders hope to: (a) induce public sympathy and make councilmen aware that their reputations as responsive officials are on the line; (b) persuade elected politician that employee spokesmen feel strongly about " Harold L. Wilensky, Organizational pp. 10-11.

Intelligence

(New York: Basic Books, 1967),

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the issue and that, in the case of pickets, the rank and file support the leadership; (c) rally member support by intensifying feelings of polarization.; and (d) generally build their reputations as employee advocates. Some use the strategic threat. Open displays of disaffection are fairly common among Oakland's employee leaders. Strategic threats are not.12 Strategic threats involve more than vague utterances about withdrawal of services. Instead, such threats specifically note a time when action will be taken unless further concessions are forthcoming. Employee leaders are more likely to use a strategic threat if they believe: that the threat, per se, will produce satisfying concessions; that the union membership will deliver on the threat if city officials prove recalcitrant; and that carrying out the threat (for example, striking) will produce satisfactory benefits. If these condition do not hold, employee representatives fear that the strategy could backfire and produce a decline in their prestige. Among Oakland's employee representatives those in the police association are the most confident about their capacity to use the strategic threat effectively. In 1969, for instance, the police leadership asked the Alameda County Central Labor Council for strike sanction in early August. Simultaneously, the leadership called a general membership meeting for the following Tuesday in order to hold a strike vote. By so doing, police spokesmen "bound themselves" to a time and place for a tactical decision and, thereby, laid their status as leaders on the line.13 If the council granted no more concessions and the rank and file voted down such action, the prestige of police leaders as representatives of a constituency would sag. The very fact that police spokesmen were willing to "burn their bridges" in such a visible way made council members more open to compromise.14 Eventually, the police won additional overtime concessions and a special pay boost for lieutenants. 12 There are various kinds of strategic threats. A group can make a minor threat, warning of a slight modification of services if city officials are obstinate. A threat geared to increments is also a pledge to take a small step but it links the move to more basic action. An all-out threat is one where employees show a willingness to use their basic resource, the strike, or possibly violence. See Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 42. 13 See Schelling, Ibid., p. 22. 14 A recent strike in nearby Vallejo, California, also lent credibility to the threat. The disruption went on for a week and despite court injunctions, police and firemen won much of what they wanted and were not punished for their actions.

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MANAGER A N D COUNCIL TACTICS

Facing various employee gambits, the manager and, at times, the council counter with a set of their own. During the early phases of the game, the manager is particularly active. Reduce uncertainty. When confronted with a salary request, city officials initially attempt to reduce uncertainty about it. In Oakland the city manager and his staff gather data concerning the cost of the proposal, practices of other jurisdictions, and employee priorities. Oakland's assistant to the city manager works closely with a finance office staff member to determine how the requests will affect the city's budget. The assistant and the staff specialist make no effort to do an analysis of every request, but instead focus on those items that they believe will be central during bargaining sessions. (Once negotiations begin, the manager's assistant will seek additional information as the need arises.) In general, determining how much a specific proposal will drain city coffers is easy, but this is not always so. Some requests are perplexing to estimate even over the short run. For instance, in 1969, the police association sought time-and-a-half pay for overtime worked. (Previously policemen had received one hour off for each extra hour put in.) The manager's assistant found it difficult to attach a price tag to this proposal because data were not readily available on how many extra hours police officers had worked in the past. The eventual pact officials negotiated reflected this uncertainty. The city council agreed to pay officers at this rate up to the amount of $50,000. After this sum had run out, policemen would get an hour-and-a-half off for each extra hour worked. The city manager searches for cost data because he wants to know how much his efforts to economize will be hurt. By contrast he orders his staff to collect information from other jurisdictions primarily because he wants to stay in the salary race with other governments. The amount that enables city hall to compete becomes the maximum desirable concession. In order to obtain information concerning pay rates elsewhere, the manager continues to have the civil service office gather statistics from Reading Formula jurisdictions. This provides him with salary data. Good fringe benefit information takes more time to accumulate and synthesize since many different

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programs exist and since there is seldom an accurate expression of their overall dollar value available. Consequently the manager's staff usually check into prevailing fringe benefit practices elsewhere when it learns which issues will be salient during bargaining sessions. In addition to tapping other jurisdictions and the finance office, the manager's staff gets a small amount of information from the police and fire chiefs. These department heads receive particular attention because, as we have seen, employee groups in their agencies are the strongest in the city. In discussions with them a staff member usually asks: Which employee demands are justified? Which ones are employees serious about? For the two public safety officials, such questions produce some ambivalence. They do, after all, want their subordinates to receive ample pay since they believe that it helps their agencies attract and keep first-rate personnel. Despite these sentiments, however, they do not become major proponents of employee values. Sensitive to the chief executive's cost-cutting aspirations, the two officials point to a few requests which seem particularly justified and express some hunches as to association priorities. With this information, as well as that from other sources, the Meet and Confer Committee (in consultation with the manager) develops a first-round counteroffer. As is commonly the case, the committee offers employee leaders less at the outset than it ultimately expects to give. Keep information from employees. A more direct adversary relationship between employees and city officials causes the latter to place greater emphasis on secrecy. In the course of compiling data and making calculations, Oakland's city manager is increasingly aware of the value of information as a power resource. He is sensitive to what others have observed: that "information violates the law of conservation, since sharing it does not diminish its quantity, though its value may decline as more people possess it."16 With the dawn of the bargaining phase, the manager prizes secrecy more than ever. Thus in 1970 he ended the practice of sharing the results of the Reading 15 Warren F. Ilchman and Norman Thomas Uphoff, The Political Economy of Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 67.

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Formula salary survey with employees. Since losing this aid to calculation, the rank and file no longer know what they have coming to them under a previous decision rule. Changes in the budgetary form also reflect the manager's concern with creating uncertainty for opponents. Until 1970 the preliminary budget which the finance office made available in June contained a salary increase reserve category. This specified the amount top officials had set aside for a possible employee pay boost; but after 1969 this figure no longer appeared. The manager wanted to keep employees guessing about how much he could afford to give them. From his point of view the more ignorant they were of contingency funds the better. The experience of Oakland's manager suggests, then, that when one resource declines in value as a means of attaining ends (for example, authority), actors tend to become more skillful in manipulating others (for example, information). Concede the merit pay raise. In considering the counteroffer which the manager formulates, it is important to realize that it is above and beyond a raise he has already agreed to grant to a substantial number of bureaucrats. This ensues as a result of city hall's merit pay system. Each year most of Oakland's classified employees receive a seniority or step increase which amounts to about a 2 1/2 percent hike over their previous year's salary.16 While some persons in city hall call the increase a "merit" raise, it is so automatic that the term is inaccurate; officials rarely deny employees the boost. In preparing the budget, the analyst assumes that all eligible employees will receive the increases and adjusts personnel expenditure figures accordingly. The manager and some finance staff members are unenthusiastic about the automatic quality of the pay boost. While they would like to see step increases which are based more on merit, and which are far less automatic, they have not seriously pushed for this "reform." Instead Oakland officials have adopted what Wildavsky and Singer (in their discussion of foreign policy) have called an averaging strategy. This strategy "rejects creating special policies for each" case and " Once an individual reaches the top step in a salary ladder he does not receive an increase.

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"maintains the same policy for an entire class" of instances. "The rationale for adopting the same policy for an entire class . . . is that the results would, on the average, be better than trying to work out specific policies for all or a few of them. . . . Averaging strategies originate as a response to conditions that make it prohibitively expensive to calculate new policies for each situation."17 From the manager's vantage, a serious effort to administer a merit pay plan would have substantial costs. Since there are norms against doing it capriciously, it would require more systematic employee evaluation than bureaucrats presently carry out. In addition, administrators would have to spend considerable time making calculations about whether to grant each employee a raise. Still another cost would be increased discontent and conflict within the organization. Employee leaders would protest. There would be unpleasantness. A special appeal mechanism to handle complaints about the rating might be necessary. Given disadvantages of this nature, awarding an average increase to everyone has a compelling logic even if it leads to overpayment and a failure to reward quality performance. In general, then, where employee groups are strong and good performance information is scarce, officials will try to reduce conflict by adopting an averaging strategy. Elected officials dispense justifications. In attempting to resolve differences concerning other pay issues, the city manager works through his Meet and Confer Committee. During this bargaining phase politicians are minimally involved and will remain so if employee leaders accept an offer which comes close to what the manager originally expected to give. If consensus occurs, the city council generally rubber-stamps the agreement. To ignore the recommendation of the Meet and Confer Committee would lower the status of the committee in negotiations; elected officials would have to spend more time bargaining; moreover, prospects are minimal that councilmen could convince employee groups to settle for a smaller pay package. It is when the manager cannot forge a settlement that elected " Aaron Wildavsky with Max Singer, "A Third World Averaging Strategy," in The Revolt Against the Masses and Other Essays on Politics and Public Policy, ed. Aaron Wildavsky (New York: Basic Books, 1971), p. 474.

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politicians tend to intervene more actively. Relying on the manager for data and advice, they seek to justify publicly city hall's position while at the same time they search for a new problem solution. Initially, the mayor and councilmen respond to employee discontent by trying to enhance or preserve their status as competent government officials. To this end, they defend the offer that city hall has extended and question the propriety and accuracy of employee statements. The 1969 remarks of the mayor to the police association indicate themes which city officials repeatedly use. First, the mayor claimed that disruptive tactics would be a "grave disservice" to the citizens; this was the public interest theme. The mayor aimed a second contention at a particular group—the taxpayers. He claimed that these people, particularly the old living on fixed income, would foot the bill if the city granted police demands. Third, the mayor emphasized a reference group argument that the "grass was not greener" elsewhere. He noted that fringe benefits in Oakland were higher than in any city across the nation and he cited four California cities in support of this contention. Finally, the mayor sought to reduce the status of police leaders in the eyes of the public, arguing that they were not "truly representative" of the rank-and-file policemen. While justifying themselves publicly, top policy makers also assess the need to search further for a problem solution. In general, the resources they are willing to commit to a renewed hunt for a solution increase with their perception of employee organization strength. The greater cost and uncertainty they believe an employee group can create, the more loquacious and the more interested in new data they become. For this reason, they pay more attention when the police association is unhappy than when local # 1 is complaining. Search for new information. When confronted with a strong group and a stalemate, the manager and council at times promote a fact-finding mission. This tactic meshes nicely with the faith Oakland council members have in "the big round table" method of conflict resolution.18 It assumes that if men "Jeffrey Pressman, "Preconditions of Mayoral Leadership," American Political Science Review 66 (June 1972): 519.

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of good will have the facts and sit down to discuss matters, they can agree. The possibility that good communication and excellent information may exacerbate differences is not widely understood. The manager and council also appreciate this tactic because it buys additional time. They can avoid an immediate ultimatum to come to a decision and accordingly can assess their stake in the issue more thoroughly. The quest for new data need not have all the payoffs that the council would like, however. In July 1969, for instance, city officials and the police leadership agreed to visit seventeen jurisdictions in hopes of coming up with data to justify one claim or the other. Fact-finding did not produce agreement, however, because negotiators saw the new information through different lenses. The material incentives goal of the council has long been to follow the leader, that is, to stay competitive but not to pay more than "necessary." The police felt that their professional excellence and the hazards they faced entitled them to top pay. Consequently, when the council and city manager noted that the Oakland police received more fringe benefits than most of the seventeen sampled cities, they thought that this fact supported their idea that the police association request lacked justification. Police leaders took a different view. They fought to the end for a 5 percent night differential pay even though none of the seventeen sampled cities had such a policy. Where basic values differ, new information often means little. Information gathering is, then, unlikely to produce a solution particularly when the council confronts a high-resource employee organization committed, if necessary, to the strategic threat. At such times, only concessions to employee leaders in areas which they deem important are likely to bring peace. This brings us to a basic question: How have the Oakland manager and council fared in their efforts to keep down pay increases? During the manager's term of office the city has moved from a formulae phase into a bargaining period. Have employee groups extracted larger pay boosts as a result? Data limitations prevent definitive answers to these queries, but some tentative conclusions are possible.

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OUTCOMES

Financial costs per man-year provide one clue. Such data not only incorporate salary increases but certain kinds of fringe benefit concessions as well. Table 7 shows that cost per manyear had risen by $3347 over a four-year period, an increase of 31.5 percent. Table 7 also indicates that increases were more substantial after the bargaining phase began. In the formulae period, costs per man-year rose by .3 and 8.9 percent respectively; with the advent of 1969, increase amounted to 9.7 and 9.8 percent. Limited as the data are, they do suggest that in the transition to the new phase, the manager has had to pay more for services. In passing, one can note that these increases do not simply reflect cost-of-living boosts. During this time, the consumer price index indicates that the value of the dollar went from $1,029 in 1966 to $.86 in 1970 (1967 = $1.00), a decline of 16.4 per cent.19 Costs per man-year rose by just under twice that rate. T A B L E 7 : FISCAL COST PEH MAN-YEAR H A S INCREASED, 1 9 6 6 - 1 9 7 1

Fiscal year

Man-years

Personnel expenditures

Cost per* man-year

Percentage of increase in man-year cost over previous year

1966/67 1967/68 1968/69 1969/70 1970/71

3465.8 3486.0 3486.6 3569.7 3616.2

$36,858,264 37,171,541 40,493,519 45,463,769 50,562,095

$10,634.85 10,663.09 11,614.04 12,736.02 13,982.11

.3 8.9 9.7 9.8

Source: Oakland Preliminary Budgets. * This is far from a perfect indicator for some purposes since it incorporates certain retirement costs. As the number of retired employees rises, this figure tends to go up as well.

Not surprisingly, certain types of employees have profited more than others. Table 8 presents salary levels for a cross-section of positions, including public safety, clerical, professional, skilled and unskilled categories, and reveals that police and firemen have recorded the most substantial gains. Patrolmen " Statistical Abstract of the UnitedStates, 1971 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), p. 332.

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and hosemen won pay hikes of 35 percent; increases for the other groups ranged from 22 to 25 percent. This finding lends support to the claim that the police association exerts pace-setting leverage. While hosemen in the fire department have received comparable gains, their success has rested on an ability to maintain pay parity with the police. (Note that this parity does not extend to fringe benefits.) Data on man-year costs all show police increases to be above the mean. While the increase for all bureaucrats was 31.5 percent from 1967 to 1971, police costs per man-year went up by 49 percent. (In absolute terms, the dollar outlay per man-year of police work rose from $10,927 to $16,269, a boost of $5,342.) T A B L E 8 : SELECTED SALARIES HAVE RISEN

Salaries at Lowest Step per Month Class

1966/67

Patrolman Hoseman Electrician Semi-skilled Laborer Intermediate Typist Clerk Assistant Engineer Assistant Planner

711 711 824 541 433 845 784

1968/69 823 797 910 598 478 910 845

1970/71 (Dollars) 960 960 1,029 669 535 1,043 956

Amount increase

Percentage hike

249 249 205 128 102 198 172

35 35 25 24 24 24 22

Source -. Oakland City Hall Salary Ordinances.

Since taking office, then, Oakland's manager has granted substantial pay concessions, particularly to public safety workers. Employee leverage in the material incentives game has been much in evidence. CONCLUSION

The pay arena's less centralized (and recently, more fluid) leverage pattern creates more decision uncertainties for high officials than they face in the manpower sphere. The city manager cannot as readily anticipate employee reactions to his pay maneuvers as he can department head responses to his manpower gambits. He therefore has less confidence in his capacity to pick the most satisfactory alternative available.

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71

As in the manpower arena, however, the city manager and others have access to scorecards which help them assess how well they are doing. Dollars and the number of workdays lost are the major tallies for keeping track of victory or defeat. While this numerical feedback may not help officials assess the value of a specific tactic it helps them determine the overall results of their strategies. In the personnel arenas examined so far, Oakland's city manager has been a key participant. In turning to recruitment, we will find that the city manager is a much less pivotal force and that leverage is more decentralized.

4 The Politics of Recruitment: Publicity Tactics It is the policy of the City . . . to attract to municipal service the best and most competent person available; to assure that appointments will be based on merit and fitness as ascertained by practical competitive examination and by records of achievement; and to provide the employees security of tenure, with advancement or promotion within the service where practicable from among employees having appropriate qualifications. . . . „ ,, , „. Oakland City Charter1

Oakland bureaucrats are sensitive to the importance of recruitment. As one might expect of reformed governments, attracting skilled employees is a highly salient objective. To be sure, racial and other ascriptive considerations affect recruitment decision making (as I will show in chapter 6); yet much hiring behavior in city hall can still be understood in terms of the value officials place on attracting the competent while simultaneously conserving scarce resources. Skill is facility at performing some task. Given this definition, we can conceive of employees as displaying skills congruence, mismatch, deficit, or slack. Chart 3 captures the meaning of each of these concepts. The circle with the solid line reflects the minimum work-related skills the occupational role demands. The dash line shows the skills an incumbent possesses 1

Oakland, The Charter of the City of Oakland, Article VIII, Section 800.

72

C H A R T 3 : DEFINITIONS OF SKILLS CONGRUENCE, MISMATCH, D E F I C I T AND SLACK

Skills Congruence

Skills congruence is present when the abilities employees have equal those that their organizational roles demand (e.g., a worker knows only how to fix cars and that is what his agency expects of him).

Skills Mismatch

Skills mismatch exists when there is some overlap between the skills ordinarily demanded and those employees possess, but where employees have slack abilities in some areas and deficits in others (e.g., a personnel analyst has more knowledge than is necessary in advertising vacancies, but does not know how to construct examinations, for which he is also responsible).

Skills Deficit

Skills deficit occurs when employees lack the abilities which organizational roles normally require (e.g., the city hires employees to program a computer, but they do not know how).

Skills Slack V Skills slack exists when the work related abilities of employees exceed those which organizational roles demand (e.g., a man hired to take care of the park lawns not only does so with ease, but also understands mechanics and carpentry).

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with respect to the particular role he occupies and with regard to other jobs in the organization as well. Generally, officials believe that slack is the most desirable state, followed by congruence, mismatch, and deficit. The reasons for this are clear. When an employee displays skills deficit, top bureaucrats have only costly options available. They can: (a) spend time trying to remove the employee and find a replacement; (b) stick with him and put up with poor performance, which could undermine departmental service and prestige (tolerance of incompetence in public safety units is particularly risky); or (c) commit resources toward bringing the individual into a condition of skills congruence or slack (for instance, city hall might spend resources training an employee hired to fix traffic signals who had proved to be inept).2 Officialsfindskill mismatch slightly more attractive than deficit because it opens up another alternative. If the employee fails at one job, they may be able to transfer or demote him to one where he will perform adequately. Not surprisingly, Oakland bureaucrats find skills congruence and slack most appealing. Presence of the former means that the job will get done. The existence of the latter means not only that the job will get done but also that the organization has a hedge against uncertainty. An employee with skills slack can often utilize his talents when he runs into unusual problems. One particularly important contingency is the vacancy at the higher level. When promotion from within is the prevailing norm, leaders hope that employees at one hierarchical level will develop sufficient slack to display skills congruence in the position above them. In short, they want bureaucrats to be promotable. For these, and other reasons, Oakland officials generally strive to foster skills slack. To be sure the quest for such slack often has limits. Bureaucrats in the public works office would look askance on a Ph.D. who wanted to work as a semi-skilled laborer if for no other reason than that the Ph.D. would be likely to quit soon after taking the position. Nonetheless, agency officials do strive for some slack.3 2 Amitai Etzioni, Modern Organizations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1964), pp. 68-70, has noted the relationship between control, selection, and socialization. 3 In discussing skills level, it is useful to remember that the concept applies to individuals in roles and not to organizations.

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In their efforts to attract skilled manpower Oakland officials employ publicity and selection strategies. The former refers to the transmission of information to the environment and internal organization in an effort to attract applicants. The latter deals with the processes involved in accumulating data on job hunters and choosing the ones most likely to foster skills slack. Of course, the distinction between publicity and selection is in at least one respect misleading. Publicity tactics, after all, lead to de facto selection, since someone who never hears of an opening will fail to get the job no matter how well qualified. Yet I believe the distinction is useful in pointing to the main phases of city hall's search for skilled personnel. This chapter will deal with the publicity facet of search; the next will assess selection; and the following one will analyze the minority challenge to recruitment procedures. Throughout, the spotlight will be on hiring to the classified civil service rather than the tiny number of exempt slots at the top of the pyramid. While employment practices at the higher levels affect organizational performance, so do those processes which bring in the vast majority of city employees. Moreover, social science literature generally tells us less about rank-and-file hiring than recruitment to elite slots.4

T H E CLASSIFIED CIVIL S E R V I C E

In fiscal 1970/71, more than 98 percent of city hall's full-time positions were classified.5 Even if we add part-time positions (which are exempt) to the rest, over 93 percent of all man-years are still classified. This high percentage affects the recruitment leverage pattern by giving the civil service office substantial clout. As usual, then, rules strengthen some actors at the expense of others. Often in political life those whose freedom the rules restrict try to alter them. In Oakland, however, only a few minor skirmishes have emerged over issues related to 4 For data on elite recruitment, see Richard Fenno, The President's Cabinet (New York: Random House, 1959); Theodore Lowi, At the Pleasure of the Mayor: Patronage and Power in New York City, 1898-1958 (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1964); Dean E. Mann, "The Selection of Federal Political Executives," American Political Science Review 58 (March 1964): 81-99. 5 Data are from Oakland Finance Office documents.

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Personnel Policy in the City

the classified civil service. Elected politicians, often presumed to be the natural enemy of such a system, have shown no interest in expanding the number of exempt slots. Elected politicians adopt a hands-off policy. Oakland's mayor and council have paid little attention to rank-and-file hiring. They are content with the authority to appoint the city manager and members of various commissions and have not tried to increase the number of exempt slots or circumvent the rules to award jobs to their followers. Patronage appointments to temporary or part-time positions in evidence elsewhere, are nowhere to be found in Oakland. The fact that the mayor and council are low resource recruitment actors in part accounts for their hiring inactivity. However, their basic value orientations afford a more powerful explanation. Having imbibed the "good government," antiparty culture so much a part of Oakland's local government tradition, they have little desire to influence bureaucratic appointments and removals. The city has been formally nonpartisan and had a civil service office since 1911. It has never had a vigorous machine that sustained itself by giving jobs to party regulars.6 Patronage played a minor role in the success of Oakland's only version of a conventional political boss, Mike Kelly. From 1915 to 1930, he used his influence with Mayor Davie to get public works contracts awarded to certain firms. In exchange, the contractor would, among other things, agree to employ some of Kelly's supporters. But even this limited form of patronage went out with the adoption of the council-manager form of government in 1931. At present, a nonpartisan ethos pervades. The mayor and councilmen are content to leave most recruitment in the hands of bureaucrats.7 Few support exemptions. The city manager on the other hand does favor more exempt positions because such slots enhance his control over hiring and removal. Few, however, share the manager's view. Employee leaders oppose exemptions because 6 For perspective, see Martin and Susan Tolchin, To the Victor-. Political Patronage from the Clubhouse to the White House, (New York: Random House, 1971); Harold F. Gosnell, Machine Politics: Chicago Model, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); Raymond Wolfinger, "Why Political Machines Have Not Withered Away and Other Revisionist Thoughts," Journal of Politics 34 (May 1972), pp. 365-398. 7 One cannot gainsay the importance of a nonpartisan culture. See Edward C. Banfield and James Q. Wilson, City Politics (New York: Vintage Press, 1963), pp. 207-208.

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77

such a designation increases uncertainty over job tenure and promotions for their followers. If a position is exempt, its incumbent cannot appeal a dismissal to the Civil Service Commission; nor does the rank-and-file bureaucrat receive priority over outside applicants when applying for a high-level exempt post. Civil service commissioners also oppose more exemptions because such labeling diminishes their authority and because they sympathize with rank-and-file concerns. Even high officials who occupy exempt slots are usually not interested in seeing more of them created. The great majority of these bureaucrats gradually worked themselves up through the hierarchy and sympathize with the value subordinates place on security and promotional opportunities. Furthermore, agency heads think that the classified civil service helps protect professional values. The head of the housing division believes, for instance, that "the influential" would benefit if more positions were exempt. On matters of code enforcement, friends of the councilmen might ask for special favors. Employees, insecure about tenure, would bend the rules to accommodate them. Faced with few constituencies which back increased exemptions, the city manager seldom fights for more unilateral hiring authority. Recruitment to Oakland City Hall does not, then, feature elected politicians and the manager as primary players. Rather the main protagonist is the civil service office. In essence, its staff practices a mediating technology which links "clients or customers who are or wish to be interdependent."8 Its main customers are an amorphous constituency of job seekers in city hall's environment, municipal employees eager for promotion, and top department personnel who want to fill vacancies quickly with competent people. How, then, do these and other players respond tactically to the recruitment game?

CIVIL SERVICE PUBLICITY TACTICS

Publicizing a vacancy consists of transmitting information concerning government manpower needs to people. Of all the ' J. D. Thompson, Organizations in Action (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), p. 16.

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Personnel Policy in the City

actors in the bureaucracy, the civil service office is the most consistently involved in the publicity process. The formal organization chart holds the office responsible for assuring that city hall attracts skilled applicants, and personnel analysts devote considerable time to it. Department heads are the main clients making recruitment demands on the personnel director. They are well aware that shrewd publicity campaigns can make the differences between getting a run-of-the-mill (albeit acceptable) candidate and one with skills slack. Agencies vary in the amount of service they seek from the civil service office. One element of their demand is the total number of employees they need, which stems from turnover and manpower allocation decisions made during the budgetary process. Table 9 provides a limited overview of hiring demands in Oakland. High-demand departments are those that wanted 75 or more positions filled during the year; moderatedemand agencies called for from 25 to 74 recruits; and lowdemand, 24 or less. While the data are from only one fiscal year, they do show the variation among agencies. The police department accounted for more than one-quarter of the city's needs and the three high-demand departments for more than one-half. The overall need pattern only partly reflects the size of the agency. Police, public works, and parks and recreation rank first, third, and fourth, respectively, in the number of man-years they incorporate. The fire department, which is the second largest unit in the city, is a moderate-demand agency. Vacancy totals are, of course, only one index of the work load which departments create for the civil service office, since some slots are far more difficult for a personnel analyst to fill than others. Generally, professional positions and certain hazardous ones like patrolman pose the most vexing problems, particularly in times of economic prosperity. Considering this factor, the problems posed by the police department increase in magnitude. Table 10 shows that almost half the police slots (47 percent patrolmen) typically pose search problems, whereas in the case of public works and parks and recreation, less than one-fifth of the vacancies (that is, the professional-managerial) create

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79

T A B L E 9 : D E P A R T M E N T S V A R Y IN P E R S O N N E L N E E D S , F I S C A L Y E A R

Department

Size of department in full-time man-years 1969/70

High-demand departments Police 988 Public Works 456 Parks and Recreation 403 Moderate-demand Fire General Services Museum Library Finance

departments 687 274 83 186 94

Limited-demand departments City Auditor 6 Building and Housing 83 Civil Service 17 City Planning 21 Retirement Administration 5 City Manager 7 City Attorney 17 City Physician 2 TOTAL

1969/70

Number of full-time employees Departmental Total Percentage leaving position number of positions gains in of full-time government refilled in 1969/70 positions recruiting 1969/70 budget needing filling needs 105 91 82

88 12 8

193 103 90

27.5 14.7 12.8

62 53 42 44 34

3 5 16 0 6

65 58 58 44 40

9.3 8.3 8.3 6.3 5.7

12 12 8 7

1 0 0 1

13 12 8 8

1.9 1.7 1.1 1.1

5 2 1 1

0 0 0 0

5 2 1 1

.7 .3 .1 .1

701

99.9

Source: Civil Service Office and Oakland Preliminary Budget, 1969/70.

difficulties. The police department, then, places the greatest demand on the civil service office in more ways than one.9 Rely on standard operating procedure. In focusing on publicity, the personnel director mainly seeks to manipulate his resources to satisfy department heads. His activities also reflect a sense of obligation to job hunters, however. Merit principles dictate that qualified individuals be given a chance to compete for government positions. Job hunters must therefore have a means of learning about vacancies and must have a reasonable time to apply. To these ends, civil service rules require personnel * The police department fills almost all managerial and professional slots through promotion. Consequently, the civil service office experiences few search problems with respect to them. Public works and parks and recreation contain far more entry level managerial and professional slots, which create more search burdens.

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City

T A B L E 1 0 : H I G H - D E M A N D D E P A R T M E N T S N E E D D I F F E R E N T T Y P E S OF PERSONNEL, F I S C A L YEAR 1 9 6 9 / 7 0

Percentage of total vacancies in the Police Department

Percentage of total vacancies in Public Works

Percentage of total vacancies in Parks and Recreation

Professional and Managerial (above Patrolman Level in the Police Dept.)

11

16

18

Secretarial-Clerical

17

14

5

Paraprofessional and Skilled Workers

19

29

43

Patrolmen

47

Job type

Semi-Skilled TOTAL

7 101 (n=193)

-

41 100 (n=90)

-

35 101 (n=102)

Source : Civil Service Office.

analysts to publicize vacancies in an official newspaper (the Oakland Tribune) for three days and to accept applications for at least ten days. Rules like these at times cause city hall to spend more effort publicizing vacancies than is necessary to attract the human resources it needs. Whether fulfilling obligations to job seekers or department heads, the formal goal of the civil service office is to attract the most competent applicants available. How close the agency comes to attaining this goal is a mystery. How can the staff be sure that communications flow to the right spots in the environment with the right message and the right medium at the right time? The number of applicants who show up and pass the tests provides one clue. But who knows which tactics produce these outcomes or whether another strategy would lure more talented applicants? Ordinarily, the personnel director does not worry much about these uncertainties. Rather he responds to this situation of intrinsically complex choices by adhering to certain decision rules which have fostered satisfactory performance in the past and have not damaged his status. Chart 4 captures the nature of these rules. It indicates that analysts first attempt to avoid publicizing the vacancy at all by picking someone from the eligible list. If the staff member cannot fill the slot this way,

C H A R T 4 : A DECISION T R E E OF THE C I V I L S E R V I C E P U B L I C I T Y PROCESS

'Personnel Requisition Civil Service Personnel Clerk: Is there someone on the eligible list? |

Yes >

Notify the eligibles: Are any of them still interested in the position? ^

No

Yes

Notify the department head and ar* range for interviews with the eligibles.

No

I

Pass the requisition to a Civil S e r v i c e Personnel Analyst who draws up the recruitment plan. Are there class specifications and past recruitment plans for the position?

1 /

Yes I Consider the requirements and suggestions found on specifications and previous plans. Should the plan and requirements be changed in any way from the past? I No I Is there likelihood that departmental representatives will want to review the recruitment plan? I No

No-

Examine plans for analogous positions and talk with department officials about them.

Yes. Talk it over with department representatives. Is agreement reached? No Discuss some more.

I

Submit plan to senior personnel analyst. Is the plan too costly? N o Submit it to the personnel director. Does the plan appear • satisfactory? Yes J

Submit an intention to announce the examination and a specification of who is eligible

Send it back to the personnel analyst.

-No

> Contact the analyst and clear up the matter.

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Personnel Policy in the City CHART

to take the examination to the Civil Service Commission. Do the commissioners approve?

4—Continued No

> Discuss it with commission.

Yes

Feel confident that present > decision rules are satisfactory.

Yes Have clerk send announcements to standard contacts and whoever is on the recruitment plan. Does the recruitment plan lead to attraction of an adequate supply of eligible candidates? No Begin thinking about the ways in which more complex and distant search can be conducted.

he looks to past practices, perfunctorily contacts departments, and then draws up a publicity plan. Following a review by his immediate superiors, his proposal receives the approval of the Civil Service Commission. Personnel clerks then put the plan into effect. Only if the publicity effort fails to produce enough acceptable applicants do calculations become more complex and time consuming. At such moments, the civil service office often uses a wider range of media and transmits more messages greater distances. Having provided this overview, we will now appraise publicity tactics in greater detail. Keep search cheap. One of the personnel director's main aspirations is to keep a search from consuming his staff's time and resources. Extended, complex publicity campaigns take effort away from test construction, classification studies, performance evaluations, and search for other replacements. Consequently, the cheaper the publicity, the better. One way his staff reduces costs and simplifies its task is through the use of an eligible list which specifies those individuals who previously have passed a civil service examination. Whenever personnel analysts give a test they anticipate future needs by passing more applicants than there are vacancies. The surplus candidates go on the list which becomes an informational

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resource for the office. The next time a vacancy occurs, the civil service staff checks the eligible list to learn precisely where to look for a replacement. Civil service secretaries then write and phone eligibles until they find three who still want the job. A department official subsequently chooses one of the three. Use precedent and information from clients. Whenever the list is empty, very near depletion, or two years old, personnel analysts conduct more elaborate publicity campaigns. At such times, they first draw up a recruitment plan which specifies whom they will contact, by what means, and with what message. In performing this task analysts do not rigorously assess costs and benefits of alternative tactics. Rather, they rely on standard operating procedure and in particular on one main formal decision rule—adopt the recruitment plan used in the past. The civil service office has a rudimentary memory system, one component of which contains files of previous publicity blueprints. These documents contain routing rules which specify "who will communicate to whom about what." 10 Unless another good recruiting source immediately comes to mind, the analyst basically adopts the previous plan. In addition to doing this, he also orders a secretary to send an announcement to locations which automatically receive notification of almost all civil service openings. These contacts number about 75 and include Bay Area employment offices, educational institutions (for example, University of California, Berkeley, Laney College in Oakland), social service agencies (for example, rehabilitation offices, the YMCA), and some minority organizations (for example, Mexican-American Political Association). The civil service staff does not strictly rely on information in its files to guide its behavior; it also draws on some which its clients furnish. Before completing the blueprint, the analyst contacts a department official for publicity suggestions. The official will often recommend placing advertisements in certain journals or getting in touch with certain institutions. The building division executive will, for instance, tell him to adver10 Richard Cyert and James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Clifts, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1964), p. 109.

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tise in the Daily Pacific Builder. The city attorney will on occasion advise him to contact certain law firms. The analyst discusses matters with departments not only to enhance his expertise; he also wants to coopt the agency into the publicity process. In case applicants prove difficult to find, he reduces the tendency of the department to blame him for the failure. Under such circumstances who has the "buck" is more difficult to determine. The civil service staff also builds information by recording inquiries from job hunters. At times someone will come to the office to determine whether a position is available. If one is not, the clerk at the reception desk asks the job seeker to fill out a small green card which specifies the type of position he wants and where he can be reached. When a slot of this type opens, the analyst glances at the card and contacts those who indicated interest. This card file simplifies search problems by pinpointing where likely applicants are in city hall's environment. Maintain the rules. Whether engaged in hiring or other activities, bureaucrats generally attempt to reduce the burdens of calculation by maintaining their decision rules. Hence, in the recruitment arena, Oakland's personnel director is reluctant to authorize special publicity campaigns unless programmed procedures fail to turn up enough applicants to fill vacancies. He is wary of department claims that their needs are unique and require special attention by his office. Department officials will, for example, occasionally ask the personnel director to conduct an extensive search before the eligible list is empty. By getting him to do this they hope to improve the quality of candidates available for appointment. If an eligible list is old the remaining successful applicants on it are often those "dregs" at the bottom, who just managed to pass the examinations. If the personnel director opens a new recruitment drive a department head may avoid having to hire a "barely satisfactory" applicant and can instead pick from three highly competent candidates. Then too, when a department head believes that turnover in his agency will rapidly deplete the existing eligible list, he often asks the personnel director to publicize vacancies before the rules re-

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85

quire it. By persuading the personnel director to get a jump on a publicity campaign, the agency head can avoid delays in filling vacancies. The personnel director, relying on his status as an expert, could persuade the Civil Service Commission to authorize such "premature" publicity efforts. Moreover, he has some incentive to do so since the action would build his prestige with favored departments. But he also pays costs for making such concessions. The time it takes to conduct such campaigns might be devoted to more immediate problems. Furthermore, if he gives in to one agency, others might bury him under requests. Consequently, the director generally sticks to his office decision rule: do not reopen the search unless the eligible list is empty; in short, maintain the rules unless they produce bad results. 11 Prerequisites for rule breaking. This is not to say that the personnel director inevitably turns down special requests for nonprogrammed publicity efforts. For rare, "once only" cases where costs are not excessive and where the prospects of enhancing his prestige with powerful constituents are good, he will deviate from standard decision rules. For instance, the finance director, who has considerable say over the civil service office's budgetary allocation, asked the personnel chief to help him find an accounting officer. Since the position was exempt, the personnel director was under no formal obligation to contact anyone. But in order to boost his status, he agreed and eventually secured applications from several individuals. But at the last minute the finance director got a call from a friend in Houston, Texas and hired him. As a result, the personnel director felt that his office had received little credit for its efforts. Even so, he believes that such favors often promote good will. The civil service office also departs from its routine when applicants are hard to find. At such time, the staff deliberates more and will often use such tactics as campus visits, more elaborate media advertising, and personal contacts aimed at community groups. For example, during the mid-sixties when unemployment was low and the aerospace companies booming, computer programmers and engineers were often difficult to " Ibid., p. 121.

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find. Officials consequently spent some days touring college campuses. But by October 1970, unemployment in California had hit 7.2 percent and the aerospace industry, in particular, suffered. As a result, the civil service office had plenty of applicants for those positions and more expanded, elaborate publicity efforts were unnecessary. In sum, personnel staffs tend to engage in more complex calculations and more elaborate publicity campaigns if there is labor market scarcity or a high-prestige constituent asks for a special favor which would involve spending a relatively small amount of resources.

DEPARTMENT PUBLICITY TACTICS

While the civil service office is the main actor involved in attracting a candidate, top department officials also participate. Their involvement is, however, a reluctant one. "Let someone else do it" characterizes their attitude. They prefer not to eat up time publicizing vacancies and on occasion refuse requests by the personnel director to participate. In this way, they try to keep the "buck" with him. For example, though the city attorney wants better recruits, he shuns suggestions by the personnel director that he visit law schools. He does not see himself as a "personnel man" and believes that he would be "in a hell of a spot" if he went to campuses because it would divert attention from other responsibilities. Departments publicize openings as a last resort. Some department personnel do broadly publicize vacancies. Overall, department officials more readily publicize openings if they feel that the civil service office cannot assure them a supply of talented applicants quickly enough. Convinced that the personnel director "lacks the horses" to meet their needs, bureaucrats in the police and parks and recreation departments have, for instance, long been recruitment activists. So too the city planner found that the secretarial-clerical help which the civil service office provided him was unsatisfactory—generally older women who wanted to get on the city payroll so they could draw good retirement benefits. Rather than accept this, he has scanned the environment on his own for competent secretaries,

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87

and has earned a reputation in city hall for invariably having skilled and attractive ones. At times a department head feels that a special effort to locate "quality" personnel is necessary to assure social integration in his agency. For example, the fire chief is well aware that his men spend considerable time together. They work, eat dinner, play ping-pong, watch television, and sleep in the same room. Because for brief periods firemen live in a virtually communal atmosphere, the chief feels that social compatibility is particularly important. Consequently, he encourages his staff to search for those who will fit in. In scanning the environment the relatively few department heads who make contacts rely on a number of decision rules Chart 5 presents some of the rules they use, and examples of each. As the chart indicates, proximity to Oakland, professional reputations of schools, past hiring successes, college backCHART 5 : DECISION R U L E S OAKLAND D E P A R T M E N T S U S E IN PUBLICIZING VACANCIES

Decision rule

Example

1. Contact those institutions with a reputation for being strong professionally.

The police chief focuses on the schools and universities with police science programs because he believes that people in such programs are more committed to police work and oriented toward desirable police behavior.

2. Search in close proximity to Oakland. (Communications are easier and cost less at close range. Local search may be good for the image of the department. )

Engineers from the Department of Public Works visit the University of California, Berkeley, rather than making more timeconsuming trips to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

3. Contact institutions with which you are personally familiar, especially alma maters.

Since they know professors there and probably nurture affection for the school, some search at their alma maters. A former budget and research officer had received his B.A. at San Jose State College and an M.A. from the University of Pittsburgh. He kept in close touch with these schools and recruited at least two analysts from Pittsburgh and one through an old professor at San Jose State.

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Personnel Policy in the City CHAHT

Decision rule

5—Continued Example

4. Contact places where you

The city planner, after recruiting excellent secretarial help at business schools plans to return there to search. Similarly, the police chief has been reinforced by the success of his visits to campuses with police science majors. In the words of one official, after this much success one would have to be a "nut" not to return.

Where social integration is a major concern and present interpersonal conflict in the department is low, have subordinates recruit their friends.

Each time the examination for entry level hosemen positions opens, the fire chief distributes a vast number of announcements to the more than 650 employees in his department. He urges his men to find him applicants who will bring "honor" to the department. In the fire department the "friends and relatives" approach has been elevated to the status of formal search policy.

6. Contact skilled individuals about to leave previous jobs.

The police department has focused some attention on the Oakland Army Terminal and Travis Air Force Base. Soldiers are used to the rank system, have had some relevant training, and often are looking for jobs when they leave the service. Furthermore, the Pentagon has offered military personnel "early out" from their military obligation (by three months) if they work for law enforcement agencies.

7. Rely on a business contact or professional associate to help you search. In this way you enlarge the scope of search at no financial cost to yourself.

When the finance director was looking for someone to head the electronic data processing unit, the IBM salesman with whom the city dealt made a considerable number of inquiries on the city's behalf. By being coopted into helping, the salesman hoped to build his status with those in city hall. It was from the IBM salesman that the present incumbent first received word of the opening.

8. Do not search where you will create trouble for other jurisdictions.

In conducting tours to college campuses, Oakland police representatives have been plagued by student disturbances. For instance, in April 1969, 100 students at Michigan State University staged a dem-

succeeded in the past. (Through learning, past experience becomes a guide to future action.)

Politics

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Publicity

89

5—Continued Example onstration against Oakland police recruiters. When Oakland officials were going to recruit at California State College in Fresno, the police t h e r e a n t i c i p a t e d trouble. Rather than precipitate problems and overtime compensations for Fresno police officials, Oakland's chief cancelled the visit.

grounds, and knowledge of turnover in other organizations are among the factors shaping department publicity efforts. Top officials are not, of course, the only agency personnel influencing city hall's publicity process. Sketchy data (for example, from the fire department) indicate that the rank and file play an important part in disseminating information.12 The employee who is aware of a vacancy will often do his friends and relatives a favor by tipping them off about an opening. Consequently, those who know city bureaucrats have special access to information concerning employment opportunities. A wide array of actors do, then, exert leverage over the publicity process. Having assessed the pervasiveness of the classified civil service and the tactics which the civil service office and others use to attract applicants, I will next focus on how city hall evaluates those who want jobs. 12 See Richard Wilcock and Walter H. Franke, Unwanted Workers (New York: Free Press, 1963), p. 129; Harold L. Sheppard and A. Harvey Belitsky, The Job Hunt (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1966), p. 187.

5 The Politics of Recruitment: Selection Tactics Disabuse yourself of the fiction . . . that employers necessarily know what they are doing when they hire. Richard Irish1

Selection is a guessing game. Obtaining and interpreting good information about the ability of a job hunter is extremely difficult. Problems begin with defining skill itself. Often the criteria and standards of excellent performance are so vague that no one is sure what to look for in an applicant. (Those familiar with never-ending discussions concerning "what makes a good teacher" will quickly understand the point.) Even if decision makers firmly grasp what skilled performance is, they may not be able to predict which applicant will display such behavior. Who can be sure that Candidate X will be more competent than Candidate Y ? Officials typically lack proof that their selection practices give jobs to the most adroit. Oakland's personnel analysts and certain department officials are sensitive to many of the uncertainties involved in selection. Yet many of them feel that their hiring tactics produce at least satisfactory results. Most Oakland officials believe that they can distinguish the very bad and very good applicants. Some have great faith in the predictive power of certain hiring standards. 'Richard K. Irish, Go Hire Yourself An Employer, (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1973) p. xxii.

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Chart 6 presents an overview of the technology which Oakland officials use in trying to reduce uncertainty about appliC H A R T 6 : O A K L A N D ' S E N T R Y L E V E L S E L E C T I O N PROCESS

Does the job hunter meet minimum achievement and ascriptive requirements?^-

No

*• Reject

No

> Reject

Yes

I

Does applicant pass the written exam?^Yes i Is he a policeman or fireman applicant? Yes | No

* Does he pass a physical agility exam?

YCS i ^ Does he pass the oral examination?

No

• Reject

No

•Reject

No

>• Delay

No

• Reject

I Yes

J

Is he among the top three scorers? Yes

i Does he pass the physical examination? Yes i Is he a policeman or fireman applicant? Yes I

J

No

I

>Does he survive the background check?

1

No

Reject

Yes

|

T h e d e p a r t m e n t < - N o - — I s he a patrolman head appoints him if applicant? he wishes. _ | Yes Yes I 'Does he pass a psychiatric exam? — No

» Reject or delay judgment

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cant ability. It shows that the process is more elaborate for some positions than for others. Almost all job hunters must have certain background attributes and pass written, oral, and physical examinations, and a final interview. But only certain applicants are subject to a background check, a psychiatric examination, and a physical agility test. More complex selection structures correlate positively with the amount of money the city spends training the recruit and the possible impact of employee performance on life and property. For this reason, selection procedures for patrolmen are the most extensive. Abuse of police authority or simple incompetence often have grave implications for the administration of justice. Furthermore, the police department spends close to $4,000 training each patrolman. Though formal organization charts confer recruitment responsibility on the civil service office, control over selection is fragmented. Civil service employees and department officials share clout over the establishment of minimum education and experience requirements; while personnel analysts exert more power over the written examination, the departments substantially control the oral test, the final interview of the three eligibles, and the background investigation. Professionals from other jurisdictions enter the decision process for promotionals, and medical doctors hold veto power over physical and psychiatric examinations. Below, I will explore in greater depth city hall's tactical response to selection and the resulting leverage pattern. BACKGROUND REQUIREMENTS: THE INITIAL GATE

One way administrators try to promote sage hiring decisions is through the use of background information (such as job experience, education, police record, and age). While they have no data to confirm their view, officials believe that many of these indicators are useful in predicting the future performance of applicants. Moreover, personnel analysts appreciate them because the criteria lighten their work load. The plethora of background standards eliminates about one-fifth of the job seekers prior to testing. This proportion, which is substantial in itself, becomes even more significant if we remember that

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it underrepresents the number of people screened out. Many do not even bother to apply since they perceive that they lack the necessary attributes. Diplomas and experience: What is past is prologue. All requirements eliminate some job hunters, but in this section we will focus primarily on the minimum education and experience that city hall demands. Department heads and personnel analysts see these two attributes as of prime importance for screening purposes. Education and experience probably also have the greatest implication for lower and working-class job seekers who comprise a substantial segment of Oakland's work force. Table 11 shows the average minimum education and experience requirements for positions in various Oakland departments.2 Stringent departments each have a mean educational requirement exceeding 12.5 years. These units provide legal serT A B L E 1 1 : EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS VARY BY DEPARTMENT IN OAKLAND, OCTOBER 1 9 7 0

Department Stringent City Attorney City Planning City Auditor Civil Service Museum Finance Library Moderate Building and Housing City Clerk Retirement Systems Police Fire Parks and Recreation Permissive Public Works General Services

Average education requirement (Years)

Average experience requirement (Years)

18.0 21.0 6.0 18.0 85.0 104.5 176.0

15.5 14.7 14.7 14.0 13.1 13.0 12.9

1.9 2.1 .5 2.8 2.3 1.8 1.1

84.0 5.0 6.0 1030.0 685.0 379.0

12.2 12.0 12.0 12.0 12.0 11.7

2.8 2.0 2.2 1.0 1.4 1.5

481.0 284.2

10.9 10.3

2.0 2.0

Number of fulltime man-years fiscal 1970/71

Source: Oakland Civil Service Office. 2 The data are approximate since the Civil Service Commission asks for so much education and experience "or some equivalent combination." Also note that I have equated a requirement that the applicant be able to read and write with a sixth-grade education (to facilitate numerical averaging).

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vices, recruit personnel, administer fiscal policy, and offer cultural services. Officials in these agencies believe that college degrees are essential for most of their slots. Only the presence of secretarial and clerical staff lowers their averages below sixteen years (a college diploma). Moderate departments ask for at least 11.5 years of education on the average but do not demand more than 12.5. Three of the department in this group (building and housing, police, and fire) enforce laws on codes and generally provide for the public safety. These agencies insist that virtually all bureaucrats have a high-school diploma. Officials in the tiny city clerk (recording and storing information) and retirement (handling the investment and administration of retirement money) departments have similar educational aspirations. In the moderate category only parks and recreation has heterogeneous requirements. Many of its slots, such as recreation directors and supervisors, call for a college degree, but it also has a number of positions which demand only the ability to read and write for instance, high climber, tree trimmer, golf-course maintenance man, nursery man, truck driver, and utility stage hand. Positions in permissive departments require no more than 11.5 years of schooling on the average. Public works and general service which fall into this category, are responsible for physical construction and maintenance. The former does this on Oakland's streets and terrain and the latter on the physical structure of city hall. Both have substantial numbers of positions which do not require a high-school diploma. For instance, semi-skilled workers, who comprise about a quarter of the public works staff, need only an eighth-grade education. Similarly, about 30 percent of the slots in general services are janitorial positions which do not demand a twelfth-grade diploma. Putting the city government's educational requirements in broad perspective, 8.4 percent of all full-time positions do not require a high-school degree; 11.2 percent ask for at least a college degree; and about 80 percent demand a high-school education (and in some case special kinds of vocational training as well). As for experience, all departments, except the city auditor's

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require on the average at least one year. City planning, the civil service, the museum, building and housing, and retirement systems prescribe a mean of more than two years. These figures reflect the fact that all higher level slots demand time on the job for an employee to be eligible for promotion. Many entry level jobs also require some experience. Yet, 40.7 percent of all full-time positions ask for no specific work experience. This high percentage stems from the presence of 559 patrolmen and 399 hosemen slots which require no particular job history. In Oakland, then, the overall picture is one of a bureaucracy which requires a high-school degree of most applicants and some work experience. These educational and experience standards do not rest on an overwhelming consensus among bureaucrats that present practice is appropriate. Oakland officials view the utility of these criteria in different ways. Department heads aspire to make application demands more stringent while personnel analysts often value movement in the opposite direction. Department heads want to boost requirements. Oakland's high department officials comprise the main group supporting stringent background requirements. Only one agency head, the city planner, defends lowering standards. (He feels that this will promote minority hiring.) But his department has the second highest educational requirement in the city at 14.7 years, and also one of the highest experience demands at about two years per position. Among other officials one cannot find even a latent disposition to reduce standards. This commitment to ample education and experience has roots in four basic assumptions. One is that greater education and experience predicts technical competence (that is, abilities which do not involve mastery of human interaction). Diplomas and work history presumably show that the applicant has either already internalized important technical decision rules or has the ability to do so.3 An applicant with a college diploma in accounting is likely to know how to audit books. A man with five years experience as an auto mechanic is likely to be a useful addition to the city's equipment division. 3 See Richard M. Cyert and James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1964), p. 105.

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Department heads also assume that job history and education predict interpersonal competence (for instance, the ability to get along with others). This quality can be particularly important to a department head in his relations with groups outside the department. For instance, both division heads in the building and housing department, which enforces city codes, feel that the ability to deal smoothly with code violators is essential. The housing division head wants an urban renewal representative who can do a "sell job." He has to be able to convince a property owner that even if a particular defect has not caused a mishap in forty years, "it might cause one this afternoon." Agency heads also realize that interpersonal competence helps promote the internal integration of their departments. Someone who rubs people the wrong way can heighten conflict, decrease internal communications, reduce supportive work group incentives, force the agency head to intervene in petty squabbles, and generally undermine services. Better to find someone who gets along with others than to put up with this. Top bureaucrats also assume that greater experience and education reveal a willingness to conform to schedules and organization rules. Agency heads wish to avoid hiring employees who will do such things as drink on the job or fail to show up for work on time. Disobedient behavior like this threatens their capacity to provide services and their supply of power resources. The concern with amiability and self-discipline helps explain why requirements for menial jobs are often high even though the technical skills demanded by the role are low. Consider the case of semi-skilled laborers who do basic road repair work. An employee needs little education and experience to perform such tasks. Despite this, requirements for the position are either (a) an eighth-grade education and five years of relevant work experience, or (b) a high-school diploma and one year's experience. A fourth assumption of agency officials is that high background requirements boost their professional status. Most department heads see themselves as professionals. They receive journals which warn them of the complexity of their tasks and

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the merits of hiring high ability people. Such literature extolls the efforts of other departments to get "top notch," well credentialed personnel and assumes that "professonalized" agencies are effective ones. By raising educational requirements, then, high officials boost their own self-image and raise the status of their department vis-à-vis those in other cities. Overall, the quest for skills slack has caused almost all department heads to support high background requirements.4 Further encouraging agency heads is the fact the city hall does not pay a direct financial cost for hiring better certified employees. Some systems, such as schools, automatically pay a recruit with a B.A. less than someone with an M.A.; in Oakland, the salary ordinance does not require this. Despite their commitment to high requirements, however, agency heads are generally content to "live with" the status quo. Many believe that requirements are "good enough"; most do not want to pay the opportunity costs necessary to get changes approved by the civil service commission. Yet, some do push for modifications. High requirements and scarcity. Among Oakland department heads the police chief is one of the few who has actively espoused higher educational standards. This commitment largely arises from the internal control problems he faces. The chief well understands that lower echelon patrolmen wield considerable discretion and that supervising their behavior is difficult. James Q. Wilson captures the problem in a nutshell. Because the chief "cannot in advance predict what the circumstances are likely to be or what courses of action are most appropriate—because, in short, he cannot be there himself—he cannot in advance formulate a policy that will guide the patrolman's discretion by in effect eliminating it."5 Adding to 4 For an account of the increasing trend toward "professionalism" in government, see Frederick C. Mosher, Democracy and the Public Service New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 101-110. Randall Alfred Collins, "Education and Employment: A Study in the Dynamics of Stratification" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1969), found that Bay Area firms are concerned about the interindustry status implications of their job requirements. See also Ivar Berg, Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971). 5 James Q. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 66.

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the chiefs problems is the fact that misbehavior by one or two officers can greatly undermine his prestige. Since joining the Oakland Police Department as a patrolman in November 1947, the present chief has on numerous occasions observed the problems of inadequate high echelon control. During the 1950s, for instance, corruption plagued the department when a number of officers took kickbacks. He also recalls the bleak day in 1967 when two of his patrolmen illegally shot up the Black Panther headquarters. Confronted with abuses like these and worried about skills deficit, the chief has emphasized more extensive education as a means of promoting the proper exercise of discretion. By stressing professional police work and attracting better credentialed employees, the chief hopes to reduce uncertainty concerning lower echelon behavior. Consequently, the head of the police department went before the Civil Service Commission (which has the authority to modify requirements) in December 1968, to suggest that it raise educational standards from a high-school diploma to two years of college. He told the commissioners that the complexities of modern law enforcement demanded high-quality policemen well versed in "sociology, political science, history and philosophy." The commission delayed a decision and as of early 1972 had taken no action. In response to scarcity, publicize more; don't lower standards. It is important to realize that Oakland's chief has espoused this view despite difficulties in filling vacancies. Observing the chiefs behavior, one finds little backing for the "supply and demand" proposition that employer standards will go down as applicants are difficult to find. Instead the chiefs approach supports the finding that firms in the Bay Area do not lower formal requirements in response to a tight labor market.6 At least over the short run, they and the chief respond to scarcity by intensifying publicity efforts. Officials take this action to reduce the risk of skills decline. While personnel officials are uncertain about the consequences of adjusting both specific publicity and selection tactics, they are more willing to depart from current alternatives in the case of the former. T o fail at publicity is to have vacant slots • Collins, "Education and Employment," pp. 159-165.

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standing open; to fail at adjusting selection standards downward is to create skills deficit in positions. (In this regard, the police chief is particularly aware of the damage that "one bad apple" can do.) At least in reformed, professionally oriented bureaucracies, like Oakland's, officials will view skills deficit among those employed as more costly than vacancies (up to a considerable vacancy level). Officials do not, then, lower standards in response to labor market scarcity but instead publicize more. In speaking out for higher requirements, the police chief is the exception rather than the rule. One reason why most agency heads do not spend time doing so is their anticipation of civil service office opposition. The civil service office: opponent of higher requirements. In reformed contexts, like Oakland, a civil service staff will generally oppose raising educational and experience requirements. While in unreformed settings, personnel analysts often devote their energy to professionalizing the bureaucracy and fighting patronage, in council-managed governments this is less likely to be true. Professional orientations will often be so widespread within reformed bureaucracies that personnel analysts will focus more on keeping job requirements from skyrocketing. Oakland's civil service office provides insight into the origins of resistance to greater credential demands. The personnel director and his staff frown on departmental tendencies to "shoot for the moon" on requirements. While they are not crusaders on behalf of lowered standards, they feel that in many cases requirements could be reduced. Personnel analysts believe there are costs to pay for too much selectivity. For one thing high requirements can create search difficulties for them. If they have a hard time filling patrolmen slots when they demand only a high-school education or the equivalent, calling on applicants to have two years of college can only increase their burdens. The personnel director believes that excessive "professionalism" creates a "false labor market." He recalls his years with the civil service office in Nevada where top-flight highway engineers had reached that level by working themselves up through the hierarchy rather than by having status university degrees.

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A sense of duty to employees also leads personnel analysts to oppose extravagant requirements. On the whole staff members come from an educational background and are absorbed into a work culture which emphasizes that employees should gain fulfillment and satisfaction from their jobs.7 Staff members believe that if background requirements are excessive, overqualified people obtain jobs and subsequently become alienated from their work. In a related vein, analysts worry that high requirements increase discontent by cutting off promotional opportunities. Bureaucrats with a high-school diploma will feel thwarted if all the slots above them in the hierarchy demand a college education. A final factor encouraging staff opposition to stringent requirements is the concern with hiring more minorities. I will explore this further in the next chapter. Despite these sentiments, the civil service staff under ordinary circumstances does little to lower requirements. The personnel director does not want to appear as an obstructionist in the eyes of department officials. Persuading them to lower requirements consumes time which could be devoted to pressing, day-to-day matters. Furthermore, if he is too arbitrary with departments, conflict might result and his image as a competent administrator might decline. Lowering requirements might win the director the support of such constituencies as the personnel professionals and minority leaders. But generally, these groups do not do him much good if departments become hostile. Ordinarily, then, there are few forces at work which would push the organization to change standards. Neither the personnel director nor department officials find the minimum requirements completely satisfactory. But they are unwilling to pay the costs necessary to bring about change. Performance risk spurs the quest for information. In assessing the achievement attributes of job hunters, personnel analysts and other bureaucrats generally rely exclusively on data which appear on the application form. They note educational credentials and job history but to reduce expense they do not spend time interviewing previous employers and teachers to 7 Of seven professionals in the office, three hold advanced degrees in industrial psychology.

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learn more about the applicant. Only when the risks involved in making a selection mistake are substantial do officials go beyond this in building their expertise. Hence, the police and fire chiefs authorize more extensive background investigations, since both believe that hiring errors can be costly in terms of financial resources, departmental status, and human life. The standards for evaluating the information turned up by the check are still far from crystallized. As of 1970, however, the presence of any of the following would incline the police to reject an applicant: (a) incorrect information on the application form when it appears to be the result of deliberate falsification; (b) the applicant has a bad reputation with his neighbors; (c) the job hunter has had a disciplinary problem in high school, in the army, or with a previous employer; (d) the applicant has gone through bankruptcy or been "irresponsible" in paying off his debts or alimony; (e) the job seeker has received a "large" number of traffic citations, failed to pay parking fines promptly, or generally shown disrespect for the law. These rules aim at filtering out those who tend to lose their "cool" or refuse to respect authority. The latter factor is particularly important. Departments concerned with enforcing the law and which internally stress the significance of rank as embodied in the chain of command, will attempt to recruit those who have always bestowed legitimacy on authority structures. Those who have ignored the decrees of courts about alimony, the instructions of high-school teachers, or the commands of an army sergeant are suspect. Overall these background rules cause from 5 to 10 percent of the police applicants, who have passed written and oral examinations, to be eliminated. Background data do, then, play an important role in the efforts of bureaucrats to filter out the inept. But these indicators are not the only ones used.

INFORMATION GATHERING THROUGH TESTING

In the federal government and elsewhere, personnel agencies have increasingly discarded written examinations as a criterion of selection and relied on background attributes and interviews

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instead.8 In this way civil service offices have yielded substantial screening powers to schools and universities. In Oakland, however, there is little evidence of this trend. The city, as of 1971, filled almost all classified jobs through the use of written tests. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the Civil Service Commission will soon modify this practice since supporters of the procedure outnumber opponents. Employee leaders back written tests out of a conviction that they reduce favoritism in appointments to higher level slots. Agency heads generally believe that the tests provide them with useful information for entry level appointments.9 The personnel director and his staff also perceive that written tests are useful. This is not because they have proof that the instruments are perfectly valid, that is, predictive of future performance. Procuring evidence with respect to this issue is costly. To understand whether their tests are valid, they would have to give examinations to a sample, and without telling the subjects their scores (to avoid self-fulfilling prophecy), permit those who passed as well as those who failed to work under comparable conditions. Then, they would need a fairly good measure of performance to determine the correlation between skill and test scores. Since the civil service office gives distinct examinations for many different slots, a large number of validity analyses would be necessary to assess the technology. Faced with many demands, the personnel director does not want to spend the time and resources such research would require. Despite the paucity of precise evidence, the personnel director and his staff see some value in written tests. First, they believe that the examinations do reduce uncertainty about the ability of an applicant. Since most people city hall hires do not get fired and seem to perform satisfactorily, he suspects that the instruments are somewhat predictive. In contemplating the issue, the director gains some confidence from his knowledge that Oakland uses roughly the same test construc8 See Mosher, Democracy and the Public Service. * Though the parks and recreation department is under no formal requirement to give a written examination for part-time positions, it does. Officials believe tests to be a useful basic screening device.

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tion methods as other jurisdictions.10 Apart from whether tests tap ability, analysts appreciate them as a means of reducing opportunity costs. The technology enables the staff to classify large numbers of job hunters in a short time. Oral tests, by contrast, consume many more hours. Then too, analysts believe that examinations boost the prestige of the civil service office. The device conveys to some segments of the public and certain internal bureaucratic constituencies that analysts use "objective, merit" standards in appraising applicants. In the words of one personnel staff member, tests are a "crutch" which make hiring look less arbitrary. Finally, tests reduce prospects that elected politicians will attempt to shape hiring decisions. Personnel analysts assume that intervention by elected officials will lead to the hiring of the inept; written tests provide a defense against this source of skills deficit. Convinced of the benefits of written examinations, the civil service staff has continued to construct them. Chart 7 suggests some of the decision rules personnel analysts use and the rationale behind each. Like countless other political decisions, test writing rules have a firm foundation in power resource concerns. For instance, many of them explicitly aim at conserving agency time. Some reflect analyst awareness that they lack needed expertise. Still other decision rules have their roots in a desire to protect agency prestige and the legitimacy of its authority by appearing "objective." The civil service office sets performance standards. Personnel analysts not only wield discretion in constructing examinations but also in applying standards of adequate performance. Civil service rules indicate that the applicant needs a score of 70 to pass. But this does not necessarily mean 70 percent correct. Through weighing parts of the examination differently, the analyst at times passes applicants who get only 60 percent correct. Though they have considerable discretion, analysts assume that an applicant must answer well over half the items correctly if he is ever to display skills congruence, let alone slack. Within this basic constraint, analysts vary standards 10 Cyert and March, A Behavioral with general industry practice.

Theory, p. 102, note how concerned firms are

C H A R T 7 : S O M E T E S T I N G DECISION R U L E S

Rule

Rationale

1. Purchase outside tests when measuring aptitude or particularly esoteric skills (e.g., personnel analysts administer standard intelligence exams, such as the Army General Classification Test to patrolmen, security guards, and a few others; they rely on tests used by the electronics industry to screen computer programmers.)

Analysts perceive that they do not have the expertise and time to construct these kinds of tests.

2. Primarily use multiple choice questions. (Only tests for certain professional positions such as assistant city planner call for essays. )

Grading this type of test requires little judgment and can be accomplished by a computer. This saves time for the civil service staff and reduces prospects that test takers will charge them with being "subjective"; in this respect, it helps preserve the legitimacy of civil service authority.

3. Extract some items from the national test exchange.

Analysts believe that an inflow of new data broadens their perspective and makes test writing easier.

4. Use questions from past tests.

This conserves time since personnel analysts do not have to think up a whole new batch of questions every time they give a test.

5. Consult with departments concerning the correct answers to the test questions and what information the test should probe.

Agency officials have more expertise than personnel analysts concerning technical aspects of the exam. By consulting with them the civil service office may gain some status as being responsive to department interests.

6. Particularly when writing promotionals, ask questions only directly related to the job (e.g., an Oakland plumber should not have to know about frozen pipes.)

By doing this, analysts avoid trouble with employee leaders and some department heads. Employee representatives have insisted that professional tests tap specific knowledge of city hall procedures since this gives their main constituency an advantage. Agency heads have shared this

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CHART 7—Continued

Rule

Rationale view on grounds that it reduces the time they must spend socializing an employee. They assume that someone with specific knowledge of the role will adapt to it more effectively.

slightly. Staff members are less likely to be demanding if: (a) it is hard to fill vacacies; (b) all applicants had difficulties with the test (that is, even top scorers got many wrong); and (c) they can thereby avoid giving the test again in the near future. Pass-fail decisions, then, respond slightly to labor market conditions, the overall performance of the applicants, and the desire of the civil service office to build up a long eligible list which will postpone the need for renewed search. Through the construction, administration, and grading of multiple choice tests (with an occasional essay), personnel analysts screen out more than half the job hunters taking the examination. Department officials move to center stage when less than 30 percent of the original job seekers remain. Orals: find someone who can get along. The main way in which department personnel exert selection leverage is through the official oral examination. For entry level slots, the oral board consists of two or three officials from the department and one from the civil service office.11 Oral examinations typically eliminate about one-fifth of the job hunters who make it to this selection gate. The civil service office attempts to structure the thinking of department representatives in the oral. It gives them rating sheets which specify important factors and call for officials to give the applicant a score on each. The criteria vary according to the position but usually contain five or six categories somewhat like the following: 1. Appearance, manner, and self-expression. 2. Social adaptability ("Is he at ease, friendly, confident? Does he appear to have the tact and adaptability necessary to deal with citizens, 11 The major exception to this occurs in the handling of secretarial and clerical applicants where personnel analysts control both the written and oral tests.

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and co-workers under trying conditions? Or would he tend to be too submissive, abrupt, impatient, or overbearing?"). 3. Alertness and judgment. 4. Suitability of experience. 5. Interest and enthusiasm. 6. Attitudes ("Is she businesslike? Do her manner and responses indicate that she wants to do a job, or does she appear to look upon this as just another job?").

Obviously, the above hardly comprise rigorously operationalized procedures for evaluating anyone. But the criteria do provide some general guidelines. In particular, department officials probe the ability suggested by item two. While bureaucrats pay some attention to technical knowledge, many assume that the written examination has measured this skill and, therefore, focus on interpersonal competence in the oral.12 In sum, then, where local officials use written tests to screen applicants, they will primarily use the interview to determine whether an applicant has the ability to get along with others; to a lesser degree, they will probe the candidate's orientation toward work rules and a career. The attitudes of the statistical service officer show how important amiability can be. He would rather hire a mediocre programmer who is easygoing and pleasant than a very able one who is abrasive—who "makes waves and stirs up trouble." On one occasion he served on an oral board which was interviewing a young lady. In terms of the applicant's computer knowledge, she was clearly superior to all the other applicants. But he and the other board members felt that she was too "aggressive and dynamic." There was too much "hostility" in her replies and, consequently, they flunked her. Others use the oral in an effort to find out whether an applicant will conform to work rules. Concerned with this, fire officials, for example, often ask an applicant what he plans to do with his leisure time. Since a hoseman works one day and then has two off, officials worry that he may be tempted to "chase and carouse" during his free time. This may make 12 Analysts who have seen the significance of social skills include: Charles H. Coates and Ronald J. Pellegrin, "Executives and Supervisors: Informal Factors in Differential Bureaucratic Promotion," Administrative Science Quarterly 2 (September 1957): 215, and Edward C. Banfield, The Unheavenly City (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 102.

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the employee late for work or guilty of other rule infractions. Generally, officials believe that an applicant is less likely to misuse his time off if he expresses interest in attending junior college or has such hobbies as hunting and fishing. Other questions probe the career aspirations of the applicant. Officials wish to avoid hiring those who will quit shortly thereafter or who will show little interest in winning promotion. Since department heads sink costs in training employees and it takes time to recruit new personnel, they dislike quitters. Thus, if an applicant cannot justify his constant shifting from one job to the next oral examiners will give him low ratings. Agency personnel are also suspicious of those few job hunters who are unenthusiastic about promotion. In their view such employees are unlikely to develop skills slack. In bureaucracies, like Oakland's, where promotion from within is the prevailing norm, officials will see a lack of career ambition as particularly threatening. Whatever the orientation or skill they are trying to tap, various officials emphasized the importance of "being hard." The statistical services officer was particularly emphatic on this point. He is aware of the tendency to pass applicants with border line abilities simply to encourage them. But he also knows that such "just pass" applicants wind up at the bottom of the eligible list and may eventually come up for appointment. Consequently, he guards against being "humanistic" and fails those whom he does not want to hire. Though most department officials have a theory of interviewing, they admit that their tactics are fraught with uncertainty. While they believe they can pick out the very bad, they generally lack confidence in their ability to discriminate beyond this. Most can recall some mistake. Thus, while officials wield considerable leverage over interviews, either to veto an applicant or place him high or low on the eligible list, they are not sure that their decisions maximize bureaucratic skills level. Promotion orals: barrier for agency heads. Reformed political institutions, with their strong civil service offices and emphasis on written tests, stripped hiring leverage from elected politicians. By so doing, these institutions in certain respects undermined the power position of top department officials as

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well. In Oakland, agency head weakness is particularly evident in the promotional process. Not only does the use of written examinations for advancement curtail a top official's discretion; the civil service requirement that "experts" from outside the city administer the oral examination for promotion also reduces agency head leverage.13 Where formal rules restrict the ability of department heads to promote whom they please, these officials will attempt to manipulate the system through informal means. This is what occurs in Oakland. Agency heads are not completely powerless over promotion boards. One tactic they use to encourage better outcomes is to suggest proper interviewers to the personnel director. The assistant fire chief, for instance, asks the director to contact fire officials affiliated with what he believes are professional departments. These include San Jose, Sacramento, Berkeley, and Orinda. Oakland fire officials hold San Francisco in less repute. They can recall times when San Francisco officials gave high scores to low caliber applicants. The fire leaders attribute these poor choices to the tendency of San Francisco firemen to be "politically minded." Too much in San Francisco depends on "who you know" rather than on other more relevant criteria. Consequently, they have spoken out against having representatives from across the bay on the boards. Another tactic departments use to get a "favorite son" promoted is the temporary appointment. When a position opens, civil service rules permit the agency head to appoint whomever he pleases for ninety days, during which time the personnel office will fill the position through usual procedures. By appointing someone temporarily, the department anoints the favored and gives him experience which might help him accumulate more information and earn a higher score on the promotional examination. While, most of the time the temporary appointee wins the slot, on occasion he does not. The city planner, for instance, made an interim appointment only to see the individual fail the examination. Delay in filling a vacancy is another approach used to 13 Experts include one individual from another personnel agency and two from the department's area of specialization.

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manipulate the promotional system, as the behavior of the statistical services officer in 1969 illustrates. At that time, the civil service office gave a promotional test for a high level computer programmer position. On hearing the examination announced, the statistical services office immediately encouraged a favored employee to take it. Only one other subordinate in his division competed with her, a man who had less experience and in the mind of the statistical services officer was much less qualified. To the division chiefs distress, his anointed employee failed the test and the unsuitable one passed. Faced with someone he did not want to promote, the division head procrastinated. But the statistical service officer knew he could delay only for a limited period since it hurts morale to deny an employee a promotion after the latter has earned it by passing the test. Furthermore, the statistical services officer needed someone to fill the slot. Fortunately a vacancy for a systems analyst suddenly opened in his agency, and he convinced the subordinate who passed the earlier test for senior programmer to apply for it. Again the man passed the test and the statistical services officer promptly promoted him. This left the senior programmer position open again with the prospect that the favored applicant might retake the test for it. The promotional system can, then, create difficulties for department heads. They may ultimately win but often they must pay substantial opportunity costs. Background inspections, written examinations, and interviews are the main ways that bureaucrats acquire knowledge in an effort to promote skills slack. They also use such devices as psychiatric, medical, and physical agility tests. But these filtering devices play a minor role compared to the three already presented. Less than 10 percent win jobs. As Table 12 indicates, city hall's multiple evaluation system eliminates most applicants. Less than one-fifth of those who apply pass and get on the eligible list. City officials reject more than 60 percent; another 20 percent lose by default since they fail to show up for examinations. While precise data are not available, officials estimate that during economically prosperous times, when

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